5.1

Table Of Contents
vCloud API REST Responses
All responses include an HTTP status code and, unless the status code is 204 (No Content), a Content-Type
header. Response content depends on the request. Some responses include a document body, some include
only a URL, and some are empty.
Response Content
Response content depends on the requested operation. The response to a GET request is typically the complete
representation of an existing object. The response to a PUT or POST request always contains values for the
href, name, and id attributes of the object being created or updated. It also contains at most one Task element
that you can retrieve to track the progress of the operation. When the Task completes with a status of
success, a GET request to the object's href returns all properties of the object. If the Task completion status is
not success, the object is in an indeterminate state, and should be deleted.
HTTP Response Codes
A vCloud API client can expect a subset of HTTP status codes in a response.
Table 1-3. HTTP Status Codes that the vCloud API Returns
Status Code Status Description
200 OK The request is valid and was completed. The response
includes a document body.
201 Created The request is valid. The requested object was created and
can be found at the URL specified in the Location header.
202 Accepted The request is valid and a task was created to handle it. This
response is usually accompanied by a Task element.
204 No Content The request is valid and was completed. The response does
not include a body.
400 Bad Request The request body is malformed, incomplete, or otherwise
invalid.
401 Unauthorized An authorization header was expected but not found.
403 Forbidden The requesting user does not have adequate privileges to
access one or more objects specified in the request.
404 Not Found One or more objects specified in the request could not be
found in the specified container.
405 Method Not Allowed The HTTP method specified in the request is not supported
for this object.
406 Not Acceptable The resource identified by the request is only capable of
generating response entities which have content
characteristics not acceptable according to the accept headers
sent in the request.
409 Conflict The object state is not compatible with the requested
operation.
415 Unsupported Media Type The server is refusing to service the request because the entity
of the request is in a format not supported by the requested
resource for the requested method.
500 Internal Server Error The request was received but could not be completed
because of an internal error at the server.
504 Gateway Timeout The server, while acting as a gateway or proxy, did not
receive a timely response from the upstream server specified
by the URI.
vCloud API Programming Guide
20 VMware, Inc.