Question

I’m developing a simple RESTful API, and utterly in love with how minimalistic it is. But I’m uncertain as to the correct HTTP response codes for various situations:

1. Incorrectly formed query

2. Correctly formed query refers to a resource which does not exist

3. Resource successfully deleted

4. Resource successfully edited

I’m currently thinking that 1 would be 403 Forbidden; 2 would be 410 Gone; 3 and 4 would be 202 Accepted. Do they sound right?

Answer 1

For #1, 403 suggests your application understood the request, but wont fulfil it (i.e. current user doesn’t have permission to do that for some reason). I think 400 bad request might make more sense in this case.

For #2 – I would think 404 would make more sense i.e. resource is not found, unless the
resource did exist at some point, and has then been deleted, in which case 410 would be fair – but not many clients know what to do with 410.

For #3 & #4 – 200 if you processed the deletion successfully, 202 if the deletion is queued up and will be handled at a later date “out of band”.

RFC 2616 provides great explanations of what each response code means in fairly understandable terms.