If a Restful webservice fails to update or create a resource with PUT or POST methods respectively. What should be the response code?

Question

If a Restful webservice fails to update or create a resource with PUT or POST methods respectively, what should be the response code?

Should the response code for failure of PUT and POST methods be in the 200 or 500 range. And what should be the exact code and possible response message.

Edit: extending the question to GET and DELETE also
And similarly what should be the failure code for unsuccessful GET and DELETE requests.
Ex: GET /profiles/lincoln - refers to existing profile - so returns 200 response code(correct me if wrong).
but GET /profiles/mccain - refers to not existing profiles - so what should be response code

And similarly for delete -
Ex: DELETE /movies/starwars - refer to existing movie so delete is successful (not sure what the success response code should be for delete - plz comment)
but: DELETE /movies/planetofhumans - refers to non - existing movie. so what should be the response code.

Answer 1

Stop making it hard.

The semantics are described in RFC 7231

• if the request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled: return a status from the 4xx (Client Error) class
• if the server failed to fulfill an apparently valid request: return a status from the 5xx (Server Error) class

The actual method specified in the request doesn't matter: they all use the same semantics for each of the status codes.

Except when responding to a HEAD request, the server SHOULD send a representation containing an explanation of the error situation, and whether it is a temporary or permanent condition.

You can use any media type you like for that representation - web sites have been using HTML for years. If you are looking for something JSON specific, then Problem Details for HTTP APIs may be a good choice.

GET /profiles/mccain - refers to not existing profiles - so what should be response code

404 NOT FOUND

The 404 (Not Found) status code indicates that the origin server did not find a current representation for the target resource or is not willing to disclose that one exists.