5.5

Table Of Contents
n
If multiple namespaces are represented in the request, XML namespace attributes must include an
identifying prefix, and that prefix must be used with all elements from that namespace.
n
All required elements must appear in request bodies. All elements that appear in request bodies must
appear in the order that the schema establishes, and with content that conforms to the type constraint
that the schema specifies.
Request Limits
To guard against denial-of-service attacks, vCloud Director imposes the following limits on vCloud API
requests:
n
Requests cannot exceed 512 KB.
n
Requests cannot contain more than 4096 XML elements.
n
Requests cannot have a depth greater than 100.
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 13. 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 is not authenticated or 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.
vCloud API Programming Guide
20 VMware, Inc.