Which status code to use?

Question

I have script and it sometimes cause 500 Internal Server Error. I can handle that errors. But which status to use in answer when this occur?

Code example in perl:

# catch error
eval {
     here is code which sometimes cause 500
     ....
     $response_body =  handle_request();
}

# Check if error occur
if( $@ ) { 
     $response_body =  'Error was handled'; 
     # Should I change status from 500?
     # If I should change. Which status I should use?
     # 200 or something else?
}


return $response_body;

Sergio Tulentsev · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-14T17:58:48.223

1

What do you mean, you "handled" it? Did you completely recover and the client gets their requested data? Then it should be 200.

Did you just log the exception and prevented the crash, but have no useful data to send to the client? 500 in this case.

edited Nov 14 '16 at 17:58

answered Nov 14 '16 at 16:09

Sergio Tulentsev

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which of 5xx should be? – Eugen Konkov Nov 14 '16 at 17:07
just 500, I think – Sergio Tulentsev Nov 14 '16 at 17:58
500 not handy so much. I should distinguish handled and not handled. I suppose to use 599 for example. But ask before want to ask advice. – Eugen Konkov Nov 14 '16 at 19:54
@EugenKonkov: why the client should care if it's handled or not? It didn't get stuff it requested. That's all that matters. – Sergio Tulentsev Nov 15 '16 at 07:33
For client that has no matter. It has matter when admin analize logs. So he can distinguish those cases – Eugen Konkov Nov 15 '16 at 07:48
@EugenKonkov: can't you just write to the log "this one is handled" or something, without subjecting client to non-standard response code? – Sergio Tulentsev Nov 15 '16 at 07:58

Which status code to use?

1 Answers1