MixerAPI ExceptionRender

This plugin handles rendering entity validation errors and other exceptions for your API.

• Adds validation errors to the response for failed save operations (post, put, and patch)
• Adds the short name of the Exception thrown to the response

Read more at MixerAPI.com.

Installation

You can skip this step if you have MixerApi installed.

composer require mixerapi/exception-render
bin/cake plugin load MixerApi/ExceptionRender

Alternatively after composer installing you can manually load the plugin in your Application:

# src/Application.php
public function bootstrap(): void
{
    // other logic...
    $this->addPlugin('MixerApi/ExceptionRender');
}

Setup

In your config/app.php file change the default exceptionRenderer:

'Error' => [
    'errorLevel' => E_ALL,
    'exceptionRenderer' => MixerApi\ExceptionRender\MixerApiExceptionRenderer::class,
    'skipLog' => [],
    'log' => true,
    'trace' => true,
],

Usage

Define your Validations as normal in your Table classes and MixerApiExceptionRenderer handles the rest by attaching a listener to the afterMarshall event which fires when request data is merged into entities during patchEntity() or newEntity() calls. If a validation fails then a ValidationException is thrown and rendered with an HTTP 422 status code.

Example controller action:

public function add()
{
    $this->request->allowMethod('post');
    $actor = $this->Actors->newEmptyEntity();
    $actor = $this->Actors->patchEntity($actor, $this->request->getData()); // potential ValidationException here
    if ($this->Actors->save($actor)) {
        $this->viewBuilder()->setOption('serialize', 'actor');
        $this->set('actor', $actor);

        return;
    }
    throw new \Exception("Record failed to save");
}

Output:

{
  "exception": "ValidationException",
  "message": "Error saving resource `Actor`",
  "url": "/actors",
  "code": 422,
  "violations": [
    {
      "propertyPath": "first_name",
      "messages": [
        {
          "rule": "_required",
          "message": "This field is required"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "propertyPath": "last_name",
      "messages": [
        {
          "rule": "_required",
          "message": "This field is required"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Using the controller example from above, we can catch the exception if desired and perform additional logic:

try {
    $actor = $this->Actors->newEmptyEntity();
    $actor = $this->Actors->patchEntity($actor, $this->request->getData());
} catch (\MixerApi\ExceptionRender\ValidationException $e) {
    // do something here
}

Exceptions

For non-validation based exceptions, even your projects own custom exceptions, the output is similar to CakePHP native output with the addition of an exception attribute. For example, a MethodNotAllowedException would result in:

{
  "exception": "MethodNotAllowedException",
  "message": "Your exception message here",
  "url": "/actors",
  "code": 405
}

If for instance you have a custom exception that is thrown, such as InventoryExceededException, you would see:

{
  "exception": "InventoryExceededException",
  "message": "No inventory exists",
  "url": "/requested-url",
  "code": 500
}

Providing an Exception name, in conjunction with the status code already provided by CakePHP, enables API clients to tailor their exception handling.

Changing Error Messages

ExceptionRender dispatches a MixerApi.ExceptionRender.beforeRender event that you can listen for to alter viewVars and serialize variables. Both are accessible via the MixerApi\ExceptionRender\ErrorDecorator.

Example:

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Event;

use Cake\Event\EventListenerInterface;
use MixerApi\ExceptionRender\ErrorDecorator;
use MixerApi\ExceptionRender\MixerApiExceptionRenderer;

class ExceptionRender implements EventListenerInterface
{
    public function implementedEvents(): array
    {
        return [
            'MixerApi.ExceptionRender.beforeRender' => 'beforeRender'
        ];
    }

    /**
     * @param \Cake\Event\Event $event
     */
    public function beforeRender(\Cake\Event\Event $event)
    {
        $errorDecorator = $event->getSubject();
        $data = $event->getData();

        if (!$errorDecorator instanceof ErrorDecorator || !$data['exception'] instanceof MixerApiExceptionRenderer) {
            return;
        }

        if (!$data['exception']->getError() instanceof \Authentication\Authenticator\UnauthenticatedException) {
            return;
        }

        $viewVars = $errorDecorator->getViewVars();
        $viewVars['message'] = 'A custom unauthenticated message';
        $errorDecorator->setViewVars($viewVars);
    }
}

Read more about Events in the official CakePHP documentation.