ASP.NET Core Web API Interview Question #128

What is ProblemDetails and why is it useful for API errors?

Error Handling, Logging, Caching, Rate Limiting, CORS & Reliability Senior Advanced

Quick Interview Answer

ProblemDetails is a standardized structure for HTTP API errors. It commonly includes type, title, status, detail, and instance, and can be extended with additional safe metadata such as a trace identifier.

Detailed Explanation

ProblemDetails is a standardized structure for HTTP API errors. It commonly includes type, title, status, detail, and instance, and can be extended with additional safe metadata such as a trace identifier.

Using a consistent error format helps clients handle failures programmatically instead of parsing unrelated strings or anonymous objects from different endpoints.

Code Example

return Problem(
    statusCode: StatusCodes.Status409Conflict,
    title: "Order conflict",
    detail: "The order has already been processed.");