Issue 2674: Default handling for HTTP web actions

[Rob Allen <ro...@akrabat.com>]

Hi all

Rodric, Carlos and myself had a discussion this afternoon about what should happen when the implements an HTTP web action that doesn't provide all the details required for sending a fully formed HTTP message back the client.

As a refresher, when implementing an HTTP web action, you need to return three top level keys: statusCode, headers and body, for example:

	return {
		statusCode: 201,
		headers: { "Content-Type": "application/xml" },
		body: "<xml>Created</xml>"
	}

There is also some magic for application/json where you can send back a JSON dictionary as the body and OpenWhisk will handle it for you:

	return {
		statusCode: 201,
		headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
		body: { "foo" : { "bar" : "baz" } }
	}


Questions arise as to what to do if some of this is missing. e.g.

	return {
		body: "hello"
	}


Clearly to send a result back to the client, OpenWhisk needs to provide a status code and set a content type. What should it do? 

Issue [2674] [1] contains a suggestion of what we think it should do. If you're interested, now is a good time to comment.


Regards,

Rob...


[1]: https://github.com/apache/incubator-openwhisk/issues/2674 <https://github.com/apache/incubator-openwhisk/issues/2674>