Return 404 when no record is found

API User : When a record is not found then error message should be clear about what record is not found.

API User : And use status code 404 to indicate that record was not found.

API builder : I am used to writing code like current_user.cars.find params[:car_id]. It raises an exception when record is not found.

API User: Yeap. That code needs slight tweaking when it is used inside an API. Rather than raising an exception send a clear error message when record is not found.

API builder : This is what I have right now.

1class Api::V1::CarAlertsController < Api::V1::BaseController
2
3  before_action :load_car
4
5  private
6
7  def load_car
8    @car = current_user.cars.find params[:car_id]
9  end
10
11end

API builder : In the above code the issue is that if there is no car matching params[:car_id] then above code would raise ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound exception.

1class Api::V1::CarAlertsController < Api::V1::BaseController
2
3  before_action :load_car
4
5  def show
6    if @car
7      ...
8    else
9      message = "No car was found for car_id #{params[:car_id]}."
10      render  json: { error: message }, status: :not_found
11    end
12  end
13
14  private
15
16  def load_car
17    @car = current_user.cars.find_by_id params[:car_id]
18  end
19
20end