Limitations of HTTP Interceptor

What is an HTTP Interceptor?

HTTP Interceptors are a middleware mechanism in Angular’s HttpClient module that intercepts HTTP requests and responses. They allow you to intercept outgoing HTTP requests or incoming HTTP responses and perform operations such as modifying request headers, handling errors, adding authentication tokens, caching responses, and more....

Features of HTTP Interceptor

Request Modification: Interceptors can modify outgoing HTTP requests before they are sent to the server. This includes adding headers, transforming request bodies, or even cancelling requests altogether.Response Modification: Interceptors can also modify incoming HTTP responses before they reach the application code. This can involve transforming response data, handling errors, or adding custom logic based on the response.Global Applicability: Interceptors are registered at the module level and are automatically applied to all HTTP requests and responses within the application, ensuring consistent behavior across different components and services.Chaining: Multiple interceptors can be registered and chained together, allowing for modular and reusable code.Dependency Injection: Interceptors can be injected with other services or dependencies, enabling more complex logic and integration with other parts of the application....

Uses of HTTP Interceptor

Authentication: Interceptors can be used to automatically attach authentication tokens or credentials to outgoing requests, ensuring secure communication with the server.Error Handling: Interceptors can centralize error handling logic, catching and processing errors from HTTP responses, and providing custom error handling or logging mechanisms.Caching: Interceptors can implement caching strategies by intercepting requests and responses, reducing redundant data fetching and improving application performance.Logging: Interceptors can be used to log HTTP requests and responses for debugging or auditing purposes.Content Transformation: Interceptors can transform request and response data, such as serializing or deserializing data formats (e.g., JSON, XML).Cross-cutting Concerns: Interceptors can encapsulate cross-cutting concerns related to HTTP communication, such as retry logic, rate limiting, or performance monitoring....

Limitations of HTTP Interceptor

Complexity: While interceptors are powerful tools, using too many or implementing them incorrectly can make your code harder to maintain and understand.Ordering: When you have multiple interceptors set up, the order in which they run can matter. If the order is wrong, you might end up with unexpected behaviors or conflicts.Performance Overhead: Interceptors add some extra processing for each HTTP request and response. If not done efficiently, this extra work can slow down your application, especially if it has a lot of traffic.Limited to HttpClient: Interceptors in Angular only work with HTTP requests made using the built-in HttpClient module. They won’t intercept or modify requests made using other libraries or methods like axios, fetch, or XMLHttpRequest....

Angular application with HTTP Interceptor

Let us create an angular application and use http interceptor to intercept the requests....