Processing

Overview

102 Processing is an interim response defined by WebDAV. It signals that the server has received the request and is working on it but has no final response yet, purely to keep the client and any intermediaries from timing out during a long operation.

The code is effectively deprecated in RFC 4918, and in practice 103 Early Hints or chunked responses are now preferred for the same goal.

When it happens

• It may be returned when WebDAV batch operations such as MOVE, COPY, or PROPFIND over a deep collection take a long time and the server wants to indicate progress.
• You almost never see it in ordinary web APIs, where 202 Accepted is used to acknowledge asynchronous work.

Request / Response example

MOVE /collection/ HTTP/1.1
Host: dav.example.com
Destination: /archive/collection/
Depth: infinity

HTTP/1.1 102 Processing

(server keeps the connection alive while the long MOVE runs, then sends the final status)

HTTP/1.1 201 Created

In code

HTTP/1.1 102 Processing

HTTP/1.1 207 Multi-Status
Content-Type: application/xml

Notes

• 102 is a bodyless signal; the actual outcome is carried by the final status that follows (for example 207 Multi-Status).
• Because it is deprecated and many clients do not support it, new implementations that need progress reporting should consider a different mechanism.

Related status codes

Specification