How should I trigger a 404 error from template logic

[nhaack]

Hi there,

Imagine the following scenario:

I have a tag that fetches data and provides it as smarty-object or returns false if it is unable to solve a given problem. That works great.

The tag (plug-in) is called with a parameter param which can have a limited number of some string values (~1,000).

I use $smarty.get.param in the plug-in call (simplified)

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{plug_in param=$smarty.get.param}

So I call my page with: http://example.com/page-with-plug-in/param-value

and map it to the following scheme (simplified)

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RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/page-with-plugin
RewriteRule ^([^/]*)/(.+) index.php?page=$1param=$2 [QSA,L]

Within the page "page-with-plug-in" I have the following smarty logic

{plug_in param=$smarty.get.param}

{if $plug_in_result == false}
... this entry does not exist
{else}
... do some stuff with the data
{/if}

This setup works so far. However, the page will always return a status code 200, since the page itself exists and is working correctly. But now, I'd like to send the 404 Error page in case, the plug-in returns a false.

I could successfully return a 404 header with a one-liner UDT. So now I can display some error message and send a 404 header but still it doesn't feel "smooth".

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header("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found");

So my template finally looks something like that:

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<__html>
...
</__body ... >

{plug_in param=$smarty.get.param}

{if $plug_in_result == false}
 {tag_send_404_header}
 <h1>404 Error</h1>
{else}
 <h1>{$plug_in_result->data_1}</h1>
{/if}

...

{if $plug_in_result == false}
 <div>{global_content name='error_404_message'}</div>
{else}
 <div>{$plug_in_result->data_2}</div>
{/if}

<__body>
</__html>

There are several templates in this site that have similar functionality so I use a global content block to reduce maintenance time on the error page but I also don't perfectly like this.

Ideally, would like to make CMSMS stop rendering the page and return the defined 404 error instead.

I could theoretically conduct a redirect, but this also doesn't sound right as a false result.

It's not that I couldn't live without triggering the CMSMS 404. But I'm still curious whether I can call the 404 via a specific given way.

At the moment I can think of a UDT than fetches the 404 Error data. But that wouldn't be much different.

What could be another approach for a coherent 404 behavior to the visitor?

I'm looking forward to your ideas.

Best
Nils

[Augustas]

Hi Nils,
have you found solutions to your problem?
I am in a similar scenario, and looking for possible answers.

[nhaack]

Hi Augustas,

not really. What I did is the following:

I wrapped the whole template in an IF-Statement checking whether the entry exists or not. If not, I send a 404-Header and pull in some global content blocks that contain the 404-Informationen. This makes the error messages maintainable across multiple templates. Once in place, the solution works pretty fine and seems reliable/stable.

There might be a better solution, but I hadn't much drive to tweak it any further

Best
Nils