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Http Error Codes Simple Description

HTTP Status Codes in a Nutshell#

1xx: hold on 2xx: here you go 3xx: go away 4xx: you fucked up 5xx: I fucked up

[Twitter Source][https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/548494265727188992]

Non-Rude Version#

2xx: Good - action taken with no errors 3xx: Redirect - ok, but resource is somewhere else 4xx: Error by the client - not found (Largest block) 5xx: Error on server - less descriptive, best to give better responses for clients logs

All Status Code#

A wikipedia list of all status codes

All Headers#

A wikipedia list of all HTTP Headers

Availability and Caching#

Nothing worse than an API that can’t handle requests

Cache runs in memory that keeps newly created calls Sometimes a response takes a long time with multiple calls to multiple databases, that take a long time. Putting that response into cache, means that the next few lookups won’t need to do the heavy lifting again.

Available caching:

Rate limiting#

Even cache won’t stop a huge amount of requests. Each user has a certain number of requests in a given time period. Prevents users flooding you with attacks and Denial of Service (DDOS) Needs some form of authnetication to be successful

Authentication#

  • API tokens - used when making requests - like a username and password
  • Cross realm authentication
  • HTTP Digest

A lot of the above depends on framework, language and tools of choice