HTTP Headers

The HTTP Headers used by this API were implemented using the standards provided from the HTTP 1.1 specification RFC2616

Request Headers

Accept : type/subtype

  • Example - Accept : application/xml
  • Notes - Defaults to application/xml if one is not passed in, and when a user sends application/* the resulting content sub type will be XML. Multiple types/sub types can be sent in but as per the specification the first match in degree of specificity will be the first used.
    i.e. if user sends in: application/*, application/xml, / the order would be as follows:
    1. application/xml
    2. application/*
    3. */*
  • Acceptable values - application/xml, application/json, application/xsd, application/help
  • If an invalid value is passed in via Accept header the response will result in a 415 Unsupported Media Type

Accept-Charset : charset

  • Example - Accept-Charset: utf-8
  • Notes - Accept-Charset will not be used and will always default to utf-8

Accept-Encoding : encoding

  • Example - Accept-Encoding : deflate
  • Notes - If none is sent in then the API will default to no compression.
  • Acceptable values - deflate, compress, gzip
  • If an invalid value is passed in via Accept-Encoding header the response will result in a 406 Not acceptable

Authorization : credentials

  • Example - Authorization : OAuth realm=http://developer.fellowshipone.com/docs/v1
  • Notes - This is where the OAuth credentials will go

Date : HTTP-date

  • Example - Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:28:25 GMT
  • Notes - Optional, most commonly passed in with PUTs and POSTs

Response Headers

Allow : method

  • Example - Allow: GET, PUT
  • Notes - An Allow header field MUST be present in a 405 (Method Not Allowed) response.
  • Return values - GET, PUT, POST, DELETE

Content-Encoding : content-coding

  • Example - Content-Encoding : gzip
  • Notes - This will tell the client what type of compression was used on the resource
  • Return values - deflate, compress, gzip

Content-Length : DIGIT

  • Example - Content-Length : 1254
  • Notes - Sent back with each request. Will possibly be available via HEAD requests

Content-Location : absoluteURI | relativeURI

  • Example - Content-Location : http://developer.fellowshipone.com/docs/v1/People/22114944
  • Notes - Sent back with each GET request

Content-Type : media-type

  • Example - Content-Type : application/xml, utf-8
  • Notes - Details the type of content being returned to the client

Date : HTTP-date

  • Example - Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:28:25 GMT
  • Notes - Will be returned with every response, possibly excluding responses returning status codes of 500

Location : absoluteURI

  • Example - Location: http://developer.fellowshipone.com/docs/v1/People/22114944
  • Notes - Applies to 201 and 301 only

WWW-Authenticate : challenge

  • Example - WWW-Authenticate : OAuth realm: http://developer.fellowshipone.com/docs/v1
  • Notes - The URI will change per environment, per version