It makes sense to return a 404 for DELETE request on an already-deleted resource, but the response to a request is simply a representation of the resource. My p

It makes sense to return a 404 for DELETE request on an already-deleted resource, but the response to a request is simply a representation of the resource. My point was to note that DELETE is idempotent - the resource itself is similarly deleted no matter how many DELETE requests you submit to its URL. Edit mfenniak suggests using HTTP 410 Gone instead, which makes more sense than 404 Not Found if you can configure your server to remember that a resource was deleted.