error messages should have details

[Shivan Bindal]

--- REQUEST: ----
request type : Net::HTTP::Get
request path : "/v1.1/servers/26/ips"
request headers : {"accept"=>["application/json"], "x-auth-token"=>["f895af25c6b877c7bee8f5fc94fffd591ba29a7d"], "content-type"=>["application/json"], "user-agent"=>[""], "host"=>["50.56.22.22:8774"]}
request body : nil
--- RESPONSE: ---
response code : 404
response headers : {"content-type"=>["text/html; charset=UTF-8"], "date"=>["Fri, 27 May 2011 19:10:30 GMT"], "content-length"=>["52"]}
response body : "404 Not Found\n\nThe resource could not be found.\n\n "

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

Could you give more details as to what extra information you would like to have ?

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

@Shivan: could you provide the requested information ? It's necessary for us to understand what you're after.

[Shivan Bindal (shivan-rightscale)]

Error messages without details; the error 'cloudServersFault' described in API version 1.0:
request type : Net::HTTP::Post
request path : "/v1.1/servers"
request headers : {"accept"=>["application/json"], "user-agent"=>[""], "content-type"=>["application/json"], "x-auth-token"=>["d56ec5ed734b3dfbb79cf586b8e56ec1de2bb6de"], "host"=>["50.56.22.22:8774"], "content-length"=>["24"]}
request body : "{\"server\":{\"name\":null}}"
----------------
response code : 500
response headers : {"content-length"=>["61"], "content-type"=>["application/json; charset=UTF-8"], "date"=>["Fri, 27 May 2011 19:15:40 GMT"]}
response body : "{\"cloudServersFault\": {\"message\": \"'imageRef'\", \"code\": 500}}"

According to this docs http://docs.openstack.org/cactus/openstack-compute/developer/openstack-compute-api-1.1/content/ch03s09s01.html
I expect to receive something like this:

{
    "computeFault" : {
        "code" : 500,
        "message" : "Fault!",
        "details" : "Error Details..."
    }
}

but in response i see only "{\"cloudServersFault\": {\"message\": \"'imageRef'\", \"code\": 500}}" (Structure without details).
it is an essence of this bug.

[Brian Waldon (bcwaldon)]

I understand what the doc indicates should happen, but it does not give a real-world example of how details should be used. Personally, I feel like the exception name (something like itemNotFound) and a message such as "Instance 12 could not be found." is more than enough information. The example above where the message is simply 'imageRef' is a poor attempt at logging a KeyError where the request is missing an imageRef attribute. I could see details being used for a traceback, but only if an api debug flag is set to true. What would you like to see in 'details'?

[Shivan Bindal (shivan-rightscale)]

I just want to know what happened when I sent request and something went wrong. I think message 'imageRef' absolutely uninformative. I don't know what I should change in my request to fix it. So I see only two ways:
1) message field should contains rich description of the error like 'Attribute :imageRef is mandatory.....' . In this case no necessity to specify 'detail' field
2) add details field. It can be like:
{
:code => 500,
:message => 'ParameterError: ....',
:details => 'Parameter :imageRef is mandatory.....'
}

I prefer first option. All what we need is informative error message.

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

I agree we should fix error messages where they are insufficient, but I think we need specific examples.

You submitted two different cases:

* POST /v1.1/servers without imageRef: should be a 4xx with some clue that imageRef is missing
This one is valid -- but a duplicate of bug 816128

* GET /v1.1/servers/26/ips where it doesn't exist: I think 404 / the resource could not be found is the right way to answer...

[Brian Waldon (bcwaldon)]

So...is this bug now invalid?

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

Marking Invalid per comment 6, feel free to submit new cases where you think the error message is not appropriate.