What should a JSON service return on failure / error

Question

I\'m writing a JSON service in C# (.ashx file). On a successful request to the service I return some JSON data. If the request fails, either because an exception was thrown

Answer 1

The HTTP status code you return should depend on the type of error that has occurred. If an ID doesn't exist in the database, return a 404; if a user doesn't have enough privileges to make that Ajax call, return a 403; if the database times out before being able to find the record, return a 500 (server error).

jQuery automatically detects such error codes, and runs the callback function that you define in your Ajax call. Documentation: http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/

Short example of a $.ajax error callback:

$.ajax({
  type: 'POST',
  url: '/some/resource',
  success: function(data, textStatus) {
    // Handle success
  },
  error: function(xhr, textStatus, errorThrown) {
    // Handle error
  }
});