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4. Status Code Definitions

4.1. 304 Not Modified​

The 304 (Not Modified) status code indicates that a conditional GET or HEAD request has been received and would have resulted in a 200 (OK) response if it were not for the fact that the condition evaluated to false. In other words, there is no need for the server to transfer a representation of the target resource because the request indicates that the client, which made the request conditional, already has a valid representation; the server is therefore redirecting the client to make use of that stored representation as if it were the payload of a 200 (OK) response.

The server generating a 304 response MUST generate any of the following header fields that would have been sent in a 200 (OK) response to the same request: Cache-Control, Content-Location, Date, ETag, Expires, and Vary.

Since the goal of a 304 response is to minimize information transfer when the recipient already has one or more cached representations, a sender SHOULD NOT generate representation metadata other than the above listed fields unless said metadata exists for the purpose of guiding cache updates (e.g., Last-Modified might be useful if the response does not have an ETag field).

Requirements on a cache that receives a 304 response are defined in Section 4.3.4 of [RFC7234]. If the conditional request originated with an outbound client, such as a user agent with its own cache sending a conditional GET to a shared proxy, then the proxy SHOULD forward the 304 response to that client.

A 304 response cannot contain a message-body; it is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields.

4.2. 412 Precondition Failed​

The 412 (Precondition Failed) status code indicates that one or more conditions given in the request header fields evaluated to false when tested on the server. This response code allows the client to place preconditions on the current resource state (its current representations and metadata) and, thus, prevent the request method from being applied if the target resource is in an unexpected state.

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