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The 404 code means that a server could not find a client-requested webpage. Variations of the error message include "404 Error," "404 Page Not Found" and "The requested URL was not found."
The HTTP 200 OK success status response code indicates that the request has succeeded. A 200 response is cacheable by default. The meaning of a success depends on the HTTP request method: GET : The resource has been fetched and is transmitted in the message body.
The HTTP 204 No Content success status response code indicates that a request has succeeded, but that the client doesn't need to navigate away from its current page. This might be used, for example, when implementing "save and continue editing" functionality for a wiki site.
If at any point some path part is not found, you should throw 404 eagerly.
Getting overly clever with obscure-er HTTP error codes is a bad idea. Browsers sometimes react in unhelpful ways that obfuscate the situation. Stick with 404.
A 404 return code actually means 'resource not found', and applies to any entity for which a request was made but not satisfied. So it works equally-well for pages, subsections of pages, and any item that exists on the page which has a specific request to be rendered.
So 404 is the right code to use in this scenario. Note that it doesn't apply to 'server not found', which is a different situation in which a request was issued but not answered at all, as opposed to answered but without the resource requested.
404 is just fine. HTTP/1.1 Status Code Definitions from RFC2616
204:
No Content.” This code means that the server has successfully processed the request, but is not going to return any content
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/204
That's depending if userid is a resource identifier or additional parameter. If it is then it's ok to return 404 if not you might return other code like
400 (bad request) ‐ indicates a bad request
or412 (Precondition Failed) e.g. conflict by performing conditional update
More info in free InfoQ Explores: REST book.
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