return type for wep api for easy error handling - error-handling

Question

I have a web api which I call from my angularjs application. I have a method where (if all is OK) I return a list of strings. But if something goes wrong and I catch an exception, how should I handle this?
I'm quite new to this and I'm wondering how I should do about error handling? Are there any best practices for what return type I should use in a case like this?
1.
[HttpGet]
[Route("{user}")]
public IHttpActionResult GetItems(string user)
{
try
{
return Ok(adObject.GetItems(user)); //List of strings
}
catch (Exception e)
{
//return e how? Or log error? Both?
throw;
}
}
2.
[HttpGet]
[Route("{user}")]
public List<string> GetItems(string user)
{
return adObject.GetItems(user);
}

Answer 1

You should return a 500 http status code with enough information to tell the UI that an error occurred without revealing the inner workings of the API. For instance, you might say "unable to insert a new record". If the error is a result of the UI sending bad data, you would instead send a 400 series status code such as a 422.
To do all of this, there are two options. You can simply send back an InternalServerError like this:
[HttpGet]
[Route("{user}")]
public IHttpActionResult GetItems(string user)
{
try
{
return Ok(adObject.GetItems(user)); //List of strings
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Return InternalServerError();
LogError(e);
}
}
Which will just return a 500 error and log the the exception (you would need to write the LogError method).
You could also call ResponseMessage instead of InternalServerError and return your own HttpResponseMessage with more detail on the problem. Both of these methods are on the ApiController if you want to investigate their signatures or see others that you might be able to use.
The other option is to create a custom exception filter that inherits from ExceptionHandler. A good example of how to do this is available on this website:
http://www.brytheitguy.com/?p=29
Hope that helps.