Changing HTTP status message using Sinatra

Question

I\'m writing a simple Sinatra app, and given a user posts a request with an specific data, I want to return an error \'453\' (custom error code) with a message CLIENT_ERROR,

Answer 1

I would recommend not to use custom HTTP status codes. If you think you have something of general use, consider writing an Internet Draft and going through the IETF specification process.

Answer 2

The status message is generated by the server you are using, e.g. in Thin the messages are in Thin::HTTP_STATUS_CODES and the reponse line is generated in Thin::Response, and in WEBrick they are in WEBrick::HHTPStatus::StatusMessage and the response is generated in WEBrick::HTTPResponse.

If you know what server you are using, you could add your error to the appropriate hash.

With Thin:

require 'thin'
Thin::HTTP_STATUS_CODES[453] = "Client Error"

and the output:

$ curl -v localhost:4567
* About to connect() to localhost port 4567 (#0)
*   Trying 127.0.0.1... connected
* Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 4567 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.19.7 (universal-apple-darwin10.0) libcurl/7.19.7 OpenSSL/0.9.8r zlib/1.2.3
> Host: localhost:4567
> Accept: */*
> 
< HTTP/1.1 453 Client Error
< X-Frame-Options: sameorigin
< X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
< Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8
< Content-Length: 0
< Connection: keep-alive
< Server: thin 1.4.1 codename Chromeo
< 
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact
* Closing connection #0

and with WEBrick:

require 'webrick'
WEBrick::HTTPStatus::StatusMessage[453] = "Client Error"

which gives the output:

$ curl -v localhost:4567
* About to connect() to localhost port 4567 (#0)
*   Trying 127.0.0.1... connected
* Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 4567 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.19.7 (universal-apple-darwin10.0) libcurl/7.19.7 OpenSSL/0.9.8r zlib/1.2.3
> Host: localhost:4567
> Accept: */*
> 
localhost - - [13/Aug/2012:01:41:48 BST] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 453 0
- -> /
< HTTP/1.1 453 Client Error 
< X-Frame-Options: sameorigin
< X-Xss-Protection: 1; mode=block
< Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8
< Content-Length: 0
< Server: WEBrick/1.3.1 (Ruby/1.9.3/2012-04-20)
< Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:41:48 GMT
< Connection: Keep-Alive
< 
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact
* Closing connection #0