Is it bad practice to depend on the unique constraint while creating a new object?

[chilly leaf]

In my example: I have a User model with unique email. Should I be checking beforehand if the email already exists or does it not really matter because it will throw an error?

[sonic maple]

To help others find answers, you can mark your question as solved via Right click solution message -> Apps -> ✅ Mark Solution

[carmine mauve]

Ii'll reply again i didn't like my previous answer. If you set the email field to unique you'll get an error if you try to use the same email to create another account. You just manage the error properly.

You should have a banner in your website that display the errors that come from the backend

a reusable banner let's say

[twilit oriole]

If it is a unique key on your database, it will throw an error.

[chilly leaf]

Well you don't want to display every error its bad practice

Its revealing more to the user than they need to

But atm for every error (because this really should be my only prisma error) I have a message: "An error occured while creating your account. You may already have an existing account with this email address."

[carmine mauve]

nope, just translate it into something different

[chilly leaf]

ig but generic errors is what ur supposed to do

[twilit oriole]

This is worst than the prisma error itself. It reveals a user with this specific email already exist, which can be used to list random user's to plan an attack, prisma error do tell the user a little bit about your database architecture, but rarely it will reveal too much.

But shortening the conversation, you should change your error message to a more generic one

[chilly leaf]

Most apps will say that

Even google says that if your signing up

A random error is worse because that doesn't tell the user to switch their email and they will be unable to signup