How to serve 404's using AngularJS and a RESTful API - rest

Question

Let's say you have an AngularJS application hooked up to a RESTful API and you have a route for "/item/:itemId".
.when('/item/:itemId', {
templateUrl: '/static/partials/item-detail.html',
controller: ItemDetailController
})
angular.module('angServices', ['ngResource']).factory('Item', function($resource) {
return $resource('/api/item/:itemId', {}, {
query: { method: 'GET', params: { itemId: '' }, isArray: true }
});
});
If the user goes to "/item/9" and an object with the itemId 9 does not exist, Angular will receive a 404 from the API, but will not naturally return a 404 to the user.
In other questions, I've seen people suggest creating an interceptor and having Angular redirect to a 404 error page when a resource is not found.
var interceptor = ['$rootScope', '$q', function(scope, $q) {
...
function error(response) {
if (response.status == 404) { window.location = '/404'; }
...
$httpProvider.responseInterceptors.push(interceptor);
However, I want to return a correct 404 with the original requested URL for SEO purposes.
Also, the solution above first loads the page and then redirects (just like Twitter used to do), so its sub-optimal.
Should I check server-side to first see if the resource exists before passing the request on to the Angular app? The downside of this is that it wouldn't work for broken links within the application.
What is the best way to approach this?

Answer 1

Maybe this jsfiddle can help you.
http://jsfiddle.net/roadprophet/VwS2t/
angular.module('dgService', ['ngResource']).factory("DriveGroup", function ($resource) {
return $resource(
'/', {}, {
update: {
method: 'PUT'
},
fetch: {
method: 'GET',
// This is what I tried.
interceptor: {
response: function (data) {
console.log('response in interceptor', data);
},
responseError: function (data) {
console.log('error in interceptor', data);
}
},
isArray: false
}
}
);
});
var app = angular.module('myApp', ['ngResource', 'dgService']);
app.controller('MainController', ['$scope', 'DriveGroup', function ($scope, svc) {
$scope.title = 'Interceptors Test';
svc.fetch(function (data) {
console.log('SUCCESS');
}, function () {
console.log('FAILURE');
});
}]);
I tried with this and works fine. I only change the fetch method to get.
In your case, you will need to change the console.log('FALIURE'); to $location.path('/404');.
GL!