[metrics-bugs] #21036 [Metrics/Onionoo]: Onionoo doesn't return JSON for error responses

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#21036: Onionoo doesn't return JSON for error responses
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 Reporter:  lukechilds       |          Owner:  metrics-team
     Type:  defect           |         Status:  new
 Priority:  Low              |      Milestone:
Component:  Metrics/Onionoo  |        Version:
 Severity:  Minor            |     Resolution:
 Keywords:                   |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                   |         Points:
 Reviewer:                   |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by karsten):

 Interesting.  I wonder whether you (or in this case your HTTP library)
 should even attempt to parse the body of a 400 response.  It seems
 potentially problematic with many other web services.

 I'm not yet convinced though that we should return JSON responses for
 error cases.  We'd have to extend the JSON format just for this, which
 seems like overkill.  In theory, returning an HTTP error code should be
 sufficient for clients.

 So, I agree that it might be confusing to return an HTML body in these
 error cases and a JSON response in the success case.  I guess that's a
 matter of configuring Jetty to not provide HTML output together with the
 HTTP 400 response and instead provide an empty body.  Would that be
 better?  And would browsers (and browser users) be okay with that?

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21036#comment:1>
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