Response<T>

Namespace: RA.Utilities.Api.Results

The Response<T> class is the universal wrapper for all API responses within the RA.Utilities ecosystem. It provides a standardized structure for returning data, errors, and status information from your API endpoints, ensuring consistency and predictability for clients.

🎯 Purpose

The Response<T> class is the foundational building block for creating standardized and predictable API responses in your application. Its primary purpose is to act as a universal wrapper for every response that your API sends back to a client.

By using this single, consistent structure, you gain several key advantages:

1. Standardization: Every response, whether it's a success carrying data, a validation error, or a server-side failure, will have the same shape. It will always contain a ResponseCode, ResponseType, ResponseMessage, and a Result payload.

2. Predictability for Clients: Frontend applications and other API consumers benefit immensely from this consistency. They can write generic handling logic to parse the response wrapper before dealing with the specific data inside the Result property. This simplifies client-side code and makes it more robust.

3. Clear Communication: The wrapper explicitly communicates the outcome of the API call. The ResponseType enum (e.g., Success, BadRequest, NotFound) and the ResponseMessage provide immediate, clear context about what happened.

4. Extensibility: It serves as the base class for more specific, semantic response types like SuccessResponse<T>, BadRequestResponse, and NotFoundResponse. These derived classes pre-configure the Response<T> properties for common scenarios, reducing boilerplate code in your controllers.

In short, Response<T> is the cornerstone of a strategy to make your API's communication clear, consistent, and easy to work with for any consumer.

Class Definition

public class Response<T>
{
    public int ResponseCode { get; set; }
    public ResponseType ResponseType { get; set; }
    public string? ResponseMessage { get; set; }
    public T? Result { get; set; }
}

Properties

Property	Type	Description
ResponseCode	int	A code for the response, often mapping to an HTTP status code.
ResponseType	RA.Utilities.Core.Constants.ResponseType	An enum indicating the type of response (e.g., Success, Error, NotFound).
ResponseMessage	string?	A human-friendly message describing the outcome of the operation.
Result	T?	The actual data payload of the response. Can be null for error responses.

Generic JSON Example

The following example shows the structure of a successful response containing a Product object. The result property would be null or contain error details for other response types.

{
  "responseCode": 200,
  "responseType": "Success",
  "responseMessage": "Operation completed successfully.",
  "result": {
    "id": 123,
    "name": "Example Product"
  }
}