c＃api status：如果我们从处理api请求所需的某些中间服务获得空响应，应该是什么状态和异常

Question

We have an API that sends SMS to the users. In the SMS content, we need to send the tinyUrl.We have external service that return us the shortUrl ie

string shortUrl = UrlShortenerService.GetShortUrl(longUrl);

What should be status code returned to the client if I get null shortUrl from this service response. What should be the exception type?

The API is not just responsible to send the shortUrl but to send this shortUrl to user's mobile so we can't return 2xx status as the request was not fulfilled, we can't send 4xx request as there was nothing wrong in client's request.

Answer 1

you can use a 503. It's an error caused by the external service. Or if you want to be more general you can use the 500 status code