Adding custom HTTP status code symbols in Rails

Question

Background: Generally, in situations where we want to manually specify the HTTP status code to be returned in the response, Rails gives us a nice set of pre-defined human-readable Ruby symbols to use, rather than explicitly using the numeric values for those codes.

We can do something like the following, for example:

render text: "hurray!", status: :ok

Which is of course ultimately the same as this:

render text: "hurray!", status: 200

In my situation, I would like to render a custom HTTP status code (I've arbitrarily chosen the number 242). Obviously, this code is not standard, and doesn't have a symbolic representation within Rails, so I have to use the actual numeric value.

Current Solution: In order to keep it relatively human-readable in code, I have placed a constant in one of my constant files, like so:

initializers/constants.rb

NEEDS_UPDATE_CODE = 242

And in my controller, I render like so:

render text: "whatever I want to render", status: NEEDS_UPDATE_CODE

Question: This obviously works just fine, but it has me wondering, is there a way to add a new symbolic representation for a custom HTTP status code to Rails?

Paul Richter · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-21 15:07:57Z

14

I found the answer whilst writing the question. Since I cannot find any duplicates presently on SO, I shall post this answer in case anyone else ever has the same question.

The initial set of symbol representation-HTTP status code mappings is located in the Rack::Utils module, in an accessible hash called SYMBOL_TO_STATUS_CODE. Additionally, the human-readable status code mappings is located in HTTP_STATUS_CODES.

In order to use the symbolic representation in my code, I simply added this in my initializer:

Rack::Utils::SYMBOL_TO_STATUS_CODE[:application_needs_update] = 242

Which allows me to use that symbol like so:

render text: "whatever I want to render", status: :application_needs_update

Unfortunately, the rails log will only show the status code, for example:

Completed 242 in 363ms (Views: 8.6ms | ActiveRecord: 12.0ms)

Which is not terribly helpful for someone who is not familiar with my custom code. In order to rectify that, I can add this in the same file:

Rack::Utils::HTTP_STATUS_CODES[242] = "Application Needs Update"

As a result, when a request is completed using this code, my log will show this:

Completed 242 Application Needs Update in 363ms (Views: 8.6ms | ActiveRecord: 12.0ms)

edited Oct 21, 2016 at 15:07

answered Mar 20, 2014 at 17:40

Paul Richter

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1 Comment

Paul Richter Over a year ago

@Kuldeep So far that I'm aware, it should be good yes. I'm unaware of any other method, short of some gem that abstracts this all away for you. Are you concerned about something?

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