[ensembl-dev] Ensembl REST API | GET xrefs/name/:species/:name

[Kieron Taylor]

Dear Ramiro,

You make a fair point. No results could be construed as a 404 not found. However, you not requesting a particular resource, you are running a speculative query (at least in terms of how it works). At time of development we thought consistency in returning a list was more valuable than changing the response, i.e. The search was successful, but no results were found.

I believe we as developers tend to lean too heavily onto response codes as a method of expression, as their purpose is fulfilling HTTP protocol rather than a crutch for business logic. We are endeavouring to harmonise our REST-ish behaviour for consistency and principle of least surprise, but you should expect the xrefs endpoints to continue operating as-is for now. Stability of the API is also an important concern.

Regards,

Kieron


Kieron Taylor PhD.
Ensembl Developer

EMBL, European Bioinformatics Institute






> On 21 Oct 2019, at 10:02, Ramiro Magno <ramiro.magno at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Devs,
> 
> Still regarding this endpoint: https://rest.ensembl.org/documentation/info/xref_name
> 
> Should not the responses return errors on not available genes?
> 
> Example: Let's query for the human gene "EMBL":
> curl 'https://rest.ensembl.org/xrefs/name/human/EMBL?content-type=application/json' -i -H 'Accept: application/json'
> HTTP/1.1 200 OK
> Vary: Content-Type
> Content-Type: application/json
> Content-Length: 2
> X-Runtime: 0.015372
> X-RateLimit-Limit: 55000
> X-RateLimit-Reset: 123
> X-RateLimit-Period: 3600
> X-RateLimit-Remaining: 54999
> Vary: Origin
> Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 08:57:57 GMT
> 
> []⏎
> Cheers!
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