In the world of front-end development, handling errors for Axios requests is a common requirement. In this article, I will explain in detail how to handle Axios request errors, including common error types and handling methods.

1. Catching Errors

In Axios, we can use the catch method to catch errors that occur during the request process, regardless of whether they are network issues, server errors, or other exceptions.

axios.get('/api/data')
  .then(response => {
    // handle successful response data
    console.log(response.data);
  })
  .catch(error => {
    // handle errors
    console.error('Error:', error);
  });

2. Error Types

Axios categorizes errors into the following types:

• Network errors: Such as network interruption, DNS failure, and so on.
• Request timeout: The request time exceeds the set timeout.
• HTTP errors: The HTTP status code returned by the server is not 2xx.
• Other exceptions: For example, the request is cancelled or the URL is incorrect.

3. Error Handling

For different types of errors, we can adopt different handling methods. Below are some common error handling examples:

3.1 Network Errors

For network errors, we can give the user a friendly reminder message like "Network connection error, please try again later".

.catch(error => {
  if (error.message === 'Network Error') {
    alert('Network connection error, please try again later');
  } else {
    console.error(error);
  }
});

3.2 Request Timeout

If the request times out, we can give the user a reminder message like "Request timeout, please try again later".

.catch(error => {
  if (error.code === 'ECONNABORTED') {
    alert('Request timeout, please try again later');
  } else {
    console.error(error);
  }
});

3.3 HTTP Errors

For HTTP errors, we can handle them based on the returned status code.

.catch(error => {
  if (error.response) {
    switch (error.response.status) {
      case 401:
        alert('Unauthenticated, please log in again');
        break;
      case 404:
        alert('Resource not found');
        break;
      default:
        console.error(error);
    }
  } else {
    console.error(error);
  }
});

3.4 Other Exceptions

For other exceptional cases, we can handle them uniformly.

.catch(error => {
  console.error(error);
});

Conclusion

Handling Axios request errors is an essential skill for front-end developers. By knowing the different error types and how to handle them, we can ensure our applications are robust and provide a seamless experience to our users.

Related Questions and Answers

Q1: Can you customize error messages in Axios?

A1: Yes, Axios allows us to customize error messages in the request configuration and set custom error messages via the error property.

Q2: Can we handle errors globally in Axios?

A2: Yes, Axios supports global error handling. We can use the axios.interceptors.response.use interceptor to implement global error handling. In the interceptor, we can handle errors uniformly or specifically handle different types of errors based on our needs.