HTTP Status 204 (No Content)

HTTP Status 204 (No Content) indicates that the server has successfully fulfilled the request and that there is no content to send in the response payload body. Server might want to return updated meta information in the form of entity-headers, which if present SHOULD be applied to current document’s active view if any.

The 204 response MUST NOT include a message-body, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields.

By default, 204 (No Content) response is cacheable. If caching needs to be overridden then response must include cache respective cache headers.

For example, you may want to return status 204 (No Content) in UPDATE operations where request payload is large enough not to transport back and fourth. User agent will send the payload to server to update the resource, and if operation is successful, server will respond with 204 to indicate the success so that client application can update its UI to inform the user about the operation’s success.

It is also frequently used with interfaces that expect automated data transfers to be prevalent, such as within distributed version control systems.

Resolving lost update problem

With status 204, server may also include HTTP header ETag to let the client validate client side resource representation before making further update on server – to avoid lost update problem.

Lost update problem happens when multiple people edit a resource without knowledge of eachother’s changes. In this scenario, the last person to update a resource “wins”, and previous updates are lost. ETags can be used in combination with the If-Match header to let the server decide if a resource should be updated. If ETag does not match, then server informs the client via a 412 (Precondition Failed) response.

Reference: 204 No Content