Using invalid credentials returns xml instead of json when using Geocoder.geocode()

Question

I'm currently writing a program, that should convert all addresses from a database to its corresponding lat/long coordinates. For this I am using the HERE Geocoding API. Since this program is meant for multiple people I let them enter their app_id and app_code manually. The problem is, that if one of the credentials is invalid it will return XML instead of JSON, which causes an error: (SyntaxError: expected expression, got '<')

This is an example link, which gets called by the geocoder:

http://geocoder.api.here.com/6.2/geocode.json?xnlp=CL_JSMv3.0.17.0&app_id=invalidCredentialID&app_code=InvalidCredentialCode&street=Haupstr.%2042&postalCode=99880&city=Leina&country=DE&jsoncallback=H.service.jsonp.handleResponse(0)

I tried to somehow access the error, but since there's already an error inside the Geocoder I have to wait for the timeout (30s) for my "onError" callback to be called. And even then I don't get an error-code like "invalidCredentials", but just an Object with line and column number.

Basically I'm just using the normal geocoding service

var platform = new H.service.Platform({
  app_id: 'invalidCredentialId',
  app_code: 'invalidCredentialCode'
});
var geocoder = platform.getGeocodingService();

geocoder.geocode({searchText: 'Berlin'}, handleResponse, handleError);

I don't think this works as intended. The Geocoder.geocode() function is expecting a JSON value to pass it on to the callback function, but it's failing since it can't parse XML Data to a JSON object.

If this is working as intended, I would be happy about an advice on how to handle this problem, or maybe a solution to test the validity of given tokens.

Answer 1

It is because the actual error (PermissionError) is wrapped as xml object. In you onError function you have to handle the xml object.

Below is the sample error object:

<ns2:Error xmlns:ns2="http://www.navteq.com/lbsp/Errors/1" type="PermissionError" subtype="InvalidCredentials"><Details>invalid credentials for invalidCredentialId</Details></ns2:Error>