What is the Errors endpoint used for?

Question

I am trying to figure out what the errors endpoint is used for, so I can I can implement it in my API.

I have been trying things like:

• http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/errors/404
• http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/errors/0
• http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/errors/1
• http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/errors/500

And I am getting a File Not Found Error in Firefox.

All the errors help page says is:

Summary
Simulates an error given a code

What are valid error codes? And, can we get some sort of response telling us that we supplied a bad error code?

Answer 1

The /errors method was requested to make it easier to test libraries. Finding questions/users/etc. that result in certain error cases can be... trying, and potentially quite brittle.

Defined Error Codes:

• NotFound = 404
• InternalServerError = 500
• InvalidApplicationPublicKey = 4000
• InvalidPageSize = 4001
• InvalidSort = 4002
• InvalidOrder = 4003
• RequestLimitExceeded = 4004
• InvalidVectorFormat = 4005
• TooManyIds = 4006
• UnconstrainedSearch = 4007
• InvalidTags = 4008
• Offline = 9999

Invalid error codes result in a 404 error (NotFound).

Answer 2

Pass the parameter ?type=jsontext to see error JSON

http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/errors/404?type=jsontext

http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/errors/500?type=jsontext

Note: if you don't put ?type=jsontext, error code is simulated only in http response header, so firefox just give you error page.