HTTP status code for update and delete?

Question

What status code should I set for UPDATE (PUT) and DELETE (e.g. product successfully updated)?

Answer 1

Since the question delves into if DELETE "should" return 200 vs 204 it is worth considering that some people recommend returning an entity with links so the preference is for 200.

"Instead of returning 204 (No Content), the API should be helpful and suggest places to go. In this example I think one obvious link to provide is to" 'somewhere.com/container/' (minus 'resource') "- the container from which the client just deleted a resource. Perhaps the client wishes to delete more resources, so that would be a helpful link."

http://blog.ploeh.dk/2013/04/30/rest-lesson-learned-avoid-204-responses/

If a client encounters a 204 response, it can either give up, go to the entry point of the API, or go back to the previous resource it visited. Neither option is particularly good.

Personally I would not say 204 is wrong (neither does the author; he says "annoying") because good caching at the client side has many benefits. Best is to be consistent either way.

Answer 2

For a PUT request: HTTP 200 or HTTP 204 should imply "resource updated successfully".

For a DELETE request: HTTP 200 or HTTP 204 should imply "resource deleted successfully". HTTP 202 can also be returned which would imply that the instruction was accepted by the server and the "resource was marked for deletion".

9.6 PUT

If an existing resource is modified, either the 200 (OK) or 204 (No Content) response codes > SHOULD be sent to indicate successful completion of the request.

9.7 DELETE

A successful response SHOULD be 200 (OK) if the response includes an entity describing the status, 202 (Accepted) if the action has not yet been enacted, or 204 (No Content) if the action has been enacted but the response does not include an entity.

Source: w3.org: HTTP/1.1 Method Definitions

HTTP 200 OK: Standard response for successful HTTP requests. The actual response will depend on the request method used.

HTTP 204 No Content: The server successfully processed the request, but is not returning any content

Source: List of HTTP status codes: 2xx Success