# API specific errors & handling

Shopware-pwa provides an unified error's structure for all errors that may appear during working with Shopware 6 API.

# Shopware 6 API error structure

API throws an error in specific format. The API responds error details as an array of errors (always, even there is only one error in the response).

Default response containing errors looks like this:

{
  "errors": ShopwareError[]
}

where, ShopwareError interface is:

interface ShopwareError {
  status: string; // HTTP Status code, like "403"
  code: string; // internal error code, like "CHECKOUT__CUSTOMER_NOT_LOGGED_IN", or "VIOLATION::IS_BLANK_ERROR"
  title: string; // title of an error, like "Forbidden" or "Not found"
  detail: string; // additional information, like "Customer is not logged in."
  source?: any; // only for HTTP 400 type errors, like `{"pointer": "/email"}`
  meta: any; // unknown data that can be passed on backend side, like stacktrace in API's development mode
}

# Other API client's errors

Besides errors that may be returned by API, shopware-pwa recognize another type of errors: the Client errors itself, independent from API response:

  • timeout (axios waits too long for the response, and timeout setting is reached)
  • network error (there are some connection issues)

Each one is transformed into consistent format and gets appriopriate status code.

# Consisten format

@shopware-pwa/shopware-6-client package is responsible for connection layer between shopware-pwa and API. The error interceptor translates every (or almost every) type of an error into consistent one. Thanks to this, every error can be handled in the same way in the application in the next layers.

interface ClientApiError {
  messages: ShopwareError[]; // contains array of ShopwareError objects, even if it's an issue on axios side
  statusCode: number; // HTTP status code
}

# Example from the code

Here's a simple scenario of what may happen durin login and how to deal with such errors relying on ClientApiError & SwErrorsList vue component.

  1. Let's say we are trying to log in. The code below show what it can look like:

    // somewhere in the logic
    
    const errors = ref([]); // errors reference that can be imported in the Vue component.
    
    try {
      await apiLogout();
      broadcast(INTERCEPTOR_KEYS.USER_LOGOUT);
    } catch (e) {
      // we expect the ClientApiError, always
      const err: ClientApiError = e;
      errors.value = err.messages; // (3) and need only array of messages to be displayed later on
    
      broadcast(INTERCEPTOR_KEYS.ERROR, {
        // (4) optionally, you can plug into broadcasted error using interceptors (useIntercept composable) to show notifications or do something with an error.
        methodName: `[${contextName}][logout]`,
        inputParams: {},
        error: err,
      });
    }
    
  2. The customer provides the wrong data

  3. errors object is fullfilled with ClientApiErrors's messages array.

  4. SwErrorsList component receives loginErrors (our errors reference from previous step).

    import SwErrorsList from "@/components/SwErrorsList.vue"
    
    <SwErrorsList :list="loginErrors" />
    
  5. Component displays the errors.

# SwErrorsList component

The component is located at @/components/SwErrorsList.vue and accepts only one prop: list and in fact that's the ShopwareError[] interface.

props: {
    list: {
      type: Array,
      default: [],
    },
  },
  1. The component detects if there is only one message or more. If an amount of errors is more than 1 -> the errors are shown as a bullet list and prepended with encountered problems title. Otherwise the error message is only one string.

  2. The error can be "field" related as well, that means the error comes together with HTTP 400 error and should display additional details like field that causes validation errors.

# Intercept the errors

The errors that may occure in the logic layer (composables) can be broadcasted and intercepted in one place as well. There are many places the errors are broadcasted in order to be listened by some functions like additional logger or own way of error notification.

Let's try to intercept the error from the ## Example from the code above.

broadcast(INTERCEPTOR_KEYS.ERROR, {
  methodName: `[${contextName}][logout]`,
  inputParams: {},
  error: err,
});

Example of how to deal with broadcasted errors. The example of a nuxt plugin (opens new window) below shows how to listen for ERROR type event within useIntercept functionality and do something about it. In this case, plugin subscribes the events for INTERCEPTOR_KEYS.ERROR key and pushes errors to the external logs server using UDP.

import { useIntercept, INTERCEPTOR_KEYS } from "@shopware-pwa/composables";
import { configure, getLogger } from "log4js";

export default ({ app }) => {
  configure({
    appenders: {
      logstash: {
        type: "@log4js-node/logstashudp", // UDP "driver" works only on SSR
        host: "mylogstash.server", // for demo only; use value from env instead
        port: 5000, // for demo only; use value from env instead
      },
    },
    categories: {
      default: { appenders: ["logstash"], level: "info" },
    },
  });
  const logger = getLogger(); // get the logstash client instance

  const { on } = useIntercept();
  on({
    broadcastKey: INTERCEPTOR_KEYS.ERROR,
    name: "logstash-logger",
    handler: (payload, rootContext) => {
      logger.error(payload); // send the error to the logstash server
    },
  });
};

Thanks to this, all the errors can be captured in one place. Of course there can be some conditions and filtering needed depending on the case.