Need to return JSON-formatted 404 error in Rails

Question

I am having a normal HTML frontend and a JSON API in my Rails App. Now, if someone calls /api/not_existent_method.json it returns the default HTML 404 page. Is

Answer 1

I like to create a separate API controller that sets the format (json) and api-specific methods:

class ApiController < ApplicationController
  respond_to :json

  rescue_from ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, with: :not_found
  # Use Mongoid::Errors::DocumentNotFound with mongoid

  def not_found
    respond_with '{"error": "not_found"}', status: :not_found
  end
end

RSpec test:

  it 'should return 404' do
    get "/api/route/specific/to/your/app/", format: :json
    expect(response.status).to eq(404)
  end