Duplicate definition of invalid property type

[wang-qijia]

Hi @frankkilcommins
Is there a duplicate definition of the request types: business-rule-violation, validation-error, and invalid-body-property-value?

Assume there is an API endpoint that requires the value of the type field to be either a or b. If the request contains an invalid value (e.g., c), which of the following would be appropriate for the server to return? It seems any of the above could be used.

curl -X POST https://example.com/api/resource \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"type": "c"}'

[frankkilcommins]

Hi @wang-qijia,

Each of the problem types serves a purpose. In the situation you described, it would be best suited to invalid-body-property-value with a problem details response looking something like:

{
   "type":"https://problems-registry.smartbear.com/invalid-body-property-value",
   "title":"Invalid Body Property Value",
   "detail":"The request body contains an invalid body property value.",
   "status":400,
   "errors":[
      {
         "detail":"`c` is an invalid value. Please provide `a` or `b`",
         "pointer":"#/type"
      }
   ]
}

validation-error is also applicable but in this context is not as clear as invalid-body-property-value which is the explicit problem being faced by the client. Think of validation-error as an affordance that gives the ability to return multiple validations errors in one go which may be of slightly mixed type.

business-rule-violation is generally for situations where the client sends a semantically valid request but the server is not able to process the request as it fails to meet business rule expectations.

Hope this helps.

[wang-qijia]

Thank you for your response.

How is "semantically valid" defined in this context? Can a request with correct syntax but incorrect values also be considered semantically invalid?