http-status-codes

Suppose, we have the following API: GET /api/guests/{id} GET /api/guests?name=dummy Which status code should I return when there are no guests matching criteria? I mean no guests with name dummy . Should it be 404 , 204 or 200 with an empty array? I would return 200 with an empty array... Or a 204 (No Content) A 404 is when a resource isn't found. Your resource in this case is the collection of guests... which exists. The proper status code for each situation Consider the following situations: GET /api/guests?name=dummy It's an operation that requests a representation of a collection. If no

I am using PHP with the Amazon Payments web service. I'm having problems with some of my requests. Amazon is returning an error as it should, however the way it goes about it is giving me problems. Amazon returns XML data with a message about the error, but it also throws an HTTP 400 (or even 404 sometimes). This makes file_get_contents() throw an error right away and I have no way to get the content. I've tried using cURL also, but never got it to give me back a response. I really need a way to get the XML returned regardless of HTTP status code. It has an important "message" element that

I have a bunch of html5 video elements, with their preload attribute set to "auto". They start loading just fine, but I think there might be a problem with their caching, because each time I reload the page (without clearing the cache), they start all over again. When I checked the Network panel in firebug, I noticed everything else (images and files) was giving me a "304 not modified" message as espected, while the videos (and audio) files were giving me a "206 partial content" message, in duplicated entries. The "206 partial content" response also appears in duplicated entries when the page

I have a set of resources whose representations are lazily created. The computation to construct these representations can take anywhere from a few milliseconds to a few hours, depending on server load, the specific resource, and the phase of the moon. The first GET request received for the resource starts the computation on the server. If the computation completes within a few seconds, the computed representation is returned. Otherwise, a 202 "Accepted" status code is returned, and the client must poll the resource until the final representation is available. The reason for this behavior is

The HTTP/1.1 specification (RFC 2616) has the following to say on the meaning of status code 400, Bad Request (§10.4.1) : The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The client SHOULD NOT repeat the request without modifications. There seems to be a general practice among a few HTTP-based APIs these days to use 400 to mean a logical rather than a syntax error with a request. My guess is that APIs are doing this to distinguish between 400 (client-induced) and 500 (server-induced). Is it acceptable or incorrect to use 400 to indicate non-syntactic errors? If it is

I'm creating a RESTful API that will process a number of user interactions, including placing orders using stored credit cards. In the case of a successful order, I'm returning a 200 OK, and in the case where the order request is malformed or invalid I'm returning a 400 Bad Request. But what should I return if there is a problem during the actual processing of the order? Client POSTS order to server for a user resource. If user does not exist, 404 Not Found is returned. Order format and information is validated. If not valid, 400 Bad Request is returned. Order is processed. If the order is

What's the difference between HTTP 301 and 308 status codes? 301 (Moved Permanently): This and all future requests should be directed to the given URI. 308 (Permanent Redirect): The request and all future requests should be repeated using another URI. They seem to be similar. An overview of 301 , 302 and 307 The RFC 7231 , the current reference for semantics and content of the HTTP/1.1 protocol, defines the 301 (Moved Permanently) and 302 (Found) status code, that allows the request method to be changed from POST to GET . This specification also defines the 307 (Temporary Redirect) status code