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Updated POST error column to include 409. Changed idempotence section re. DELETE.

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Todd Fredrich
2015-02-08 11:30:59 -07:00
parent 6fc44055c2
commit fb896005bd
1 changed files with 2 additions and 2 deletions
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lessons/httpmethods.html
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@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
<tr>
<td>POST</td>
<td>201 (Created), 'Location' header with link to /customers/{id} containing new ID.</td>
<td>404 (Not Found).</td>
<td>404 (Not Found), 409 (Conflict) if resource already exists..</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>DELETE</td>
@ -136,7 +136,7 @@
<p>DELETE is pretty easy to understand. It is used to delete a resource identified by a URI.
<p>On successful deletion, return HTTP status 200 (OK) along with a response body, perhaps the representation of the deleted item (often demands too much bandwidth), or a wrapped response (see Return Values below). Either that or return HTTP status 204 (NO CONTENT) with no response body. In other words, a 204 status with no body, or the JSEND-style response and HTTP status 200 are the recommended responses.</p>
<p>HTTP-spec-wise, DELETE operations are idempotent. If you DELETE a resource, it's removed. Repeatedly calling DELETE on that resource ends up the same: the resource is gone. If calling DELETE say, decrements a counter (within the resource), the DELETE call is no longer idempotent. As mentioned previously, usage statistics and measurements may be updated while still considering the service idempotent as long as no resource data is changed. Using POST for non-idempotent resource requests is recommended.</p>
<p>There is a caveat about DELETE idempotence, however. Calling DELETE on a resource a second time will often return a 404 (NOT FOUND) since it was already removed and therefore is no longer findable. This makes DELETE operations no longer idempotent, but is an appropriate compromise if resources are removed from the database instead of being simply marked as deleted.</p>
<p>There is a caveat about DELETE idempotence, however. Calling DELETE on a resource a second time will often return a 404 (NOT FOUND) since it was already removed and therefore is no longer findable. This, by some opinions, makes DELETE operations no longer idempotent, however, the end-state of the resource is the same. Returning a 404 is acceptable and communicates accurately the status of the call.</p>
<p><strong>Examples:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><em>DELETE http://www.example.com/customers/12345</em></li>