RESTful API response status code disambiguation

Question

I'm developing a RESTful API and have a question about the most appropriate response status codes for certain scenarios.

Consider the case where the client makes a GET request for a resource. How can I disambiguate a "not found" response for the case where the resource legitimately does not exist, vs. the case where there may be a minor service interruption (during deployment, etc).

SingleShot · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-06 21:54:38Z

9

The W3C defines very specific status codes for nearly all cases you can think of. For your specific needs:

Not Found: 404
Service Unavailable: 503

answered Oct 6, 2009 at 21:54

SingleShot

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ceejayoz · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-06 21:48:34Z

6

Send a 404 status code for "Not found"

Send some 500-series error for error conditions on the server-side.

edited Oct 6, 2009 at 21:48

ceejayoz

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answered Oct 6, 2009 at 21:30

timdev

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