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Subject: Re: Any standard on picking a response status out of several
 possible?
From: Dirk-Willem van Gulik <dirkx@webweaving.org>
In-Reply-To: <yuawrolkzo7.fsf@kabuki.mynet>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:42:07 +0000
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References: <yuawrolkzo7.fsf@kabuki.mynet>
To: dev@httpd.apache.org


On 10 Nov 2010, at 14:42, Dan Poirier wrote:

> If multiple response statuses would be valid for a request (e.g. 403,
> 413), is there any standard on how to pick one?  I looked through RFC
> 2616 but didn't see anything.  Or is it just an implementation detail?

This was subject of a fair bit of debate at the time; and from what I =
recall it was tried to reduce this to a non issue (i.e. letting the =
implementor make the call) by fairly carefully having the 2x/3x and 4x =
meaning right (success, retry with extra info and no-go) - along with =
making sure that the higher numbers are increasingly more narrow in =
their scope - with the assumption that implementors would only use those =
if the semantics where truly applicable and 'actionable' by a client.

Guess that does not answer the question - but in your example 403 =
(forbidden) vs 413 (too large) - one probably wants to ask the question =
- is there anything the client can do (perhaps change some POST/form =
parameter to reduce the requested size) - or is it purely forbidden =
because if its size. If it is the first I'd do a 413 (so smarter clients =
can reduce what they get) and distinguish it form a 403 lost case - =
while if it is the latter - a 403 will be more meaningful to a wider =
range of clients.

Hope that helps,

Dw=