404 not found
The meaning of a 404 status error (according to Wikipedia) is: “The requested resource could not be found but may be available in the future. Subsequent requests by the client are permissible.”
Blacklight apps have a default “404.html” page, but any time we can provide branded content, we should. đ
This can be achieved in two ways:
- A custom page that the “/404” endpoint would route to
- A custom page that users see for an invalid search result
“/404” route
app/controllers/errors_controller.rb
- This is the controller that sets up our status and renders the correct page
# frozen_string_literal: true
class ErrorsController < ApplicationController
def not_found
render status: 404
end
endapp/views/errors/not_found.html.erb
- No need for the div if additional styling isn’t needed
- This is the same text that shows on the default “404.html” page, but can be adjusted as desired
<div class='record-not-found'>
<h1>The page you were looking for doesn't exist.</h1>
<p>You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved.</p>
<p>If you are the application owner check the logs for more information.</p>
</div>config/routes.rb
- This will map the “/404” route to our custom page above
# Custom error pages
get '/404', to: 'errors#not_found', via: :allspec/requests/errors_spec.rb
# frozen_string_literal: true
require 'rails_helper'
RSpec.describe 'Errors', type: :request do
describe ':not found' do
before(:all) { get '/404' }
it 'have an http status of 404' do
expect(response).to have_http_status(:not_found)
end
it 'redirect to the custom not_found error page' do
expect(response.body).to include("The page you were looking for doesn't exist.")
end
end
endNOTE: the default “public/404.html” file must be deleted for the above to take effect
Invalid search result
app/controllers/catalog_controller.rb
- If “/catalog/alpha” is an invalid search, it will trigger the exception handling below
- This code is telling the app to render the “record_not_found” file in “views/catalog” folder, along with a 404 status
rescue_from Blacklight::Exceptions::RecordNotFound do
render 'record_not_found', status: 404
endapp/views/catalog/record_not_found.html.erb
- Again, no need for the div if additional styling isn’t needed
<div class='record-not-found'>
<h1>The page you were looking for doesn't exist.</h1>
<p>You may have mistyped the address or provided an invalid Object ID (<%= params[:id] %>)</p>
</div>spec/requests/catalog_controller_request_spec.rb
describe 'responds to the Blacklight::Exceptions::RecordNotFound exception' do
it 'redirects to a custom 404 page' do
params = { id: 'alpha' }
get "/catalog/#{params[:id]}"
expect(response.status).to eq(404)
expect(response.body).to include("The page you were looking for doesn't exist")
expect(response.body).to include("You may have mistyped the address or provided an invalid Object ID (#{params[:id]})")
end
end
