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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T20:43:48+00:00

I’m starting a REST API to make a Web Application. Most web sites tell

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I’m starting a REST API to make a Web Application.

Most web sites tell you to delete resources issuing a DELETE HTTP request to an URI like /{resource}/{resource-id}. I’m afraid of deleting some resource that could have been updated since I retrieved it, or even a wrong resource.

Would it be OK to require sending the resource’s timestamp along with the request? I haven’t seen it anywhere, but I think it could be really useful. It would check for concurrency and prevent deleting random resources without even retrieving them before.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Use the HTTP headers of ETag and If-Match with your DELETE request.

    The client GETs the resource:

    GET /things/42

    The server responds:

    200 OK
ETag: "foo-bar-baz"

    The client wants to DELETE the resource:

    DELETE /things/42
If-Match: "foo-bar-baz"

    Case 1: thing 42 was not changed, it can be deleted. The server responds:

    410 Gone

    Case 2: thing 42 was changed and does not match the ETag: "foo-bar-baz". It is not deleted, the server reponds:

    409 Conflict

    Variant:

    You can also use the headers Last-Modified and If-Unmodified-Since instead of or in addition to ETag and If-Match.

    See the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Status Code Registry.

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