[Developers] minor change in search api behavior (empty result set will no longer be an error)

[brendan]

Hi all,

This change is no likely to affect any apps/scripts out there, but  
here goes:

Currently, if you make a search request and the service finds nothing,  
it comes back as an error.  e.g.:

http://freebase.com/api/service/search?prefix=insx&type=/music/artist&type_strict=all

{
"status": "200 OK",
"code": "/api/status/error",
"messages": [
  {
    "message": "No search results found",
    "code": "/api/status/error/search/empty"
  }
],
"result": []
}

In the coming weeks this will change.  The expected response for an  
empty result will be:

{
   "status": "200 OK",
   "code": "/api/status/ok",
   "messages": [
     {
       "message": "No search results found"
     }
   ],
   "result": []
}

This response just seems more sensible, particularly given that the  
service allows the user to request a very constrained result  
(strict=all means results must match the given type parameter value)

If your code has error handling for this "no results" case, you might  
want to make sure this change won't break things.

Let me know if you have any questions/concerns.

Brendan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.freebase.com/pipermail/developers/attachments/20080716/c14973a9/attachment.htm