Proper REST response for empty table?

Question

Let\'s say you want to get list of users by calling GET to api/users, but currently the table was truncated so there are no users. What is the prop

Answer 1

I'd answer one of two codes depending on runtime situation:

404 (Not Found)

This answer is pretty correct if you have no table. Not just empty table but NO USER TABLE. It confirms exact idea - no resource. Further options are to provide more details WHY your table is absent, there is couple of more detailed codes but 404 is pretty good to refer to situation where you really have no table.

200 (OK)

All cases where you have table but it is empty or your request processor filtered out all results. This means 'your request is correct, everything is OK but you do not match any data just because either we have no data or we have no data which matches your request. This should be different from security denial answer. I also vote to return 200 in situation where you have some data and in general you are allowed to access table but have no access to all data which match your request (data was filtered out because of object level security but in general you are allowed to request).