CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascripthttp
Noob
Noob

Reputation: 2807

Why do i have to specify any HTTP status codes in general ? What is the benefit of it?

I've read some articles about HTTP statuses, and i'm still not sure why i should specify them in my app. Let's say a user provided wrong password while trying to login. In my express app i can send response in those ways : 

 res.status(401).json({ message: 'Wrong password' })

or

res.json({ message: 'Wrong password' })

Then my application logic is based on the message value. I understand that in the second case the status code is going to be 200 OK , but why should i care about it ?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 110

Answers (3)

Brad
Brad

Reputation: 163262

Many reasons. A few off the top of my head:

  • Caching. 2xx responses are cacheable by default. You shouldn't be sending a 200 response for an error or it may look to the user like they can never login!

  • Compatibility with client libraries. It sure is nice to be able to use things that are standards compliant, so you can maybe do a .catch() and show the user an error rather than having a ton of custom logic to figure out whether the response was good or not.

  • Status codes also come from other code in the chain. You're often not just talking to your app, but usually a proxy on your end. And then, there may be several proxies between the client and you. Why should your client code have to figure out both your application-level signalling and the status code signalling when they can be one of the same? Ask someone with satellite internet... they'll tell you about what a pain intermediate proxies can be when people don't follow the standards.

  • Automatic error logging. Surely you use some system to track errors in your system, right? If you use standard HTTP response codes, they can be categorized automatically.

Upvotes: 7

h3xc0ntr0l
h3xc0ntr0l

Reputation: 399

There are plenty of reasons. At the highest, clearest level - it's accessibility / universality.

Consider a few scenarios:

  • What if the consumer of the request doesn't read the same language as your app?
  • Your web browser has immense power when it comes to intelligently sorting HTTP requests / responses. Many HTTP 2xx responses are cached; so on and so forth.
  • Many intermediary services, from firewalls to traffic filters and everything between, rely on status codes to make various calculations they need
  • Reliability. It's much safer to rely on finding a 401 Not Authorized than it is to rely on wrong password in your message field. What if you change the string, even just adding a . or captilizing something?

Upvotes: 1

Bergi
Bergi

Reputation: 664185

You need to care about HTTP because you are relying on it for your application to work. Using the appropriate HTTP verbs and status codes is necessary for this, allowing e.g. middleware or browser caches to do their work. You don't want your error message to be cached.

Upvotes: 1

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