Error Management

Error Management

This page offers a general guideline to handle the errors returned by the API functions.

There are essentially two types of function calls provided by the API Proxy. Technical function calls, such as those dealing with conversation management, memory management and diagnostics, and application function calls providing access to the range of Amadeus Central System travel products.

Examples of technical function calls are CAI_openConversationByCorporateId or CAI_setTrace.

Examples of application functional calls are CAI_sendAndReceiveXml (this is the only one in the C-XML flavour) or CAI_PoweredAirMultiAvailability (infact there is one for each Amadeus Central System product in the C-Container flavour).

All API function calls provide a return code. For technical functions the return code CAI_OK indicates that the transaction completed successfully, any other return code value is an error.

For application functions, the return code CAI_OK indicates that the transaction completed successfully. Apart from the special case of CAI_FUNCTIONAL_ERROR any other return code value is an error.

For the return code CAI_FUNCTIONAL_ERROR, the transaction completed successfully (in the sense that the query was received by the Amadeus Central System application, and it has responded), however the application has responded with a functional error. In certain cases, such errors may actually be expected, e.g. 'QUEUE EMPTY'.

The possible values for the return codes are provided in the following list [5 - Annex].

The API Dump can be used to find out more information concerning an error. The API Dump is a representation of the internal state of the API when the error occurred.
Its content is for Amadeus API Development and Marketing use only. We recommend you to provide its output when querying support to Amadeus.

During the development stage,
we suggest you to get the API dump on every return code different to CAI_OK.
During the production stage, only the following return codes need to be completed with an API Dump output :
- CAI_LOCAL_ERROR
- CAI_COMM_ERROR
- CAI_INTERNAL_ERROR.

To get it, call the CAI_getConversationDump() function (located in the 'CAI_Conversation.h' header file) after a return code different from CAI_OK.

The MessageOnly_Reply concerns application function calls only.
After a transaction has completed, check for the 'CAPI_MessagesOnlyReply' structure or XML tag. If the return code is not CAI_OK this output structure or XML document can be populated with additional details on the error.
It can be repeated several times, providing several levels of information according to the error.
The error level is detailed in the field 'LineType':

4 - Release of the memory

The release of the input structure (or XML document) can be done just after the API function call.
The release of the output structure (or XML document) must be done:

CAI_sendAndReceiveXml

(CAI_Conversation *conversation,
           CAI_XML_BUFFER xmlQuery,  
           CAI_XML_BUFFER *xmlReply)