That’s not what HTTP errors are about, HTTP is a high level application protocol and its errors are supposed to be around access to resources, the underlying QUIC or TCP will handle most lower level networking nuances.
Also, 5xx errors are not about incorrect inputs, that’s 4xx.
That’s not what HTTP errors are about, HTTP is a high level application protocol and its errors are supposed to be around access to resources, the underlying QUIC or TCP will handle most lower level networking nuances.
Also, 5xx errors are not about incorrect inputs, that’s 4xx.
I’ve had fellow developers fight me on this point, in much the same way as your parent post.
“If you return a 404 for a record not found, how will I know I have the right endpoint?”
You’ll know you have the right endpoint because I advertised it—in Open API, in docs, etc.
“But, if
/users/123returns a 404, does that mean that the endpoint can’t be found or the record can’t be found?”Doesn’t matter. That resource doesn’t exist. So, act appropriately.
It’s not like you can’t return a body with the 404 that specifies that the user itself is not found versus the ending being wrong.