I have a resource that accepts array of numbers. Each number is proceed interdependently, and computation fails are expected. How should I communicate to API client “some of your numbers couldn’t be proceed, but rest was successfully forwarded”?
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It seems the most straightforward method is just returning a XML or JSON, with the numbers and status.
Per your description, I imagine a structure like this would suffice:
{
requestDate: '2015-02-05 12:32'
results: [{
number: 1,
status: 'forwarded',
},
{
number: 2,
status: 'forwarded',
},
{
number: 3,
status: 'fail',
}]
}
I also think a HTTP Status of 200 is most indicated, as the client request was successfully processed. Also you can read in the spec (emphasis mine):
10.2.1 200 OK
…
POST an entity describing or containing the result of the action;
Edit: Researching a little more about the status codes, I think it may be better to use 207 Multi-Status:
The message body that follows is an XML message and can contain a number of separate response codes, depending on how many sub-requests were made.[4]
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