cfis : Need Help on HTTP Status Code

Comment on Need Help on HTTP Status Code by Jonno Downes

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 01:21:02 -0700

I think the 4xx (client errors) are intended for errors within the HTTP protocol, not within data carried over HTTP.

Remember the second T in HTTP stands for transport - its intended that applications build on top of that transport, not use it exclusively.

Comment on Need Help on HTTP Status Code by Jeff Reese

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 01:34:13 -0700

Whether or not it’s an appropriate use, your specific scenario sounds like a 409 Conflict. The resource that is in conflict is the username and the user can resolve the conflict by resubmitting the request.

If it works for you, use it.

Comment on Need Help on HTTP Status Code by Charlie

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:14:12 -0700

Jonno - I see what you are saying, but this seems like a reasonable use of HTTP codes to me. For example, 402 is “Payment Required” while 409 is the resource is in a conflicted state. Neither of those indicate problems within the HTTP protocol itself, they are more about the state of the resource. What I’m after is some code like “Invalid Request” - yes the server understood the request, but no, it doesn’t want to fullfil it. Having said that, I suspect my view is incorrect because this seems like such an obvious thing that it must have been discussed and rejected for some reason during HTTP’s development (haven’t found anything on Google yet though).

Comment on Need Help on HTTP Status Code by Charlie

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:16:19 -0700

Jeff - I considered using 409. But it seems like a bit of stretch. The last paragraph in the HTTP RFC worries me:

Conflicts are most likely to occur in response to a PUT request. For example, if versioning were being used and the entity being PUT included changes to a resource which conflict with those made by an earlier (third-party) request, the server might use the 409 response to indicate that it can’t complete the request.

Thus, it seems that 409 is really only about conflicts.

Comment on Need Help on HTTP Status Code by Dan Kubb

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:48:52 -0600

Hi Charlie,

FYI: Later on in the mailing list they talk about using the status code “422 Unprocessable Entity” instead of inventing a new one. It was standardized for WebDAV, and its intent was to say that the format itself may be parsable, but that the parsed data is invalid.