Already Reported

Overview

208 Already Reported is used by the WebDAV bindings extension to say that a resource was already enumerated elsewhere in the response, so its members will not be listed again. It appears mainly as an item status inside a 207 Multi-Status body.

In binding structures where several collections point at the same resource, expanding the same item repeatedly could make the response grow without bound or loop; 208 prevents that.

When it happens

• During a Depth: infinity PROPFIND, when a collection member that was already reported is encountered again, that spot is marked 208.
• It effectively appears only on WebDAV servers where bindings make the same resource reachable through multiple paths.

Request / Response example

PROPFIND /binding-a/ HTTP/1.1
Host: dav.example.com
Depth: infinity
Content-Type: application/xml

<propfind><allprop/></propfind>

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

<multistatus xmlns="DAV:">
  <response><href>/binding-a/child</href><status>HTTP/1.1 200 OK</status></response>
  <response><href>/binding-b/child</href><status>HTTP/1.1 208 Already Reported</status></response>
</multistatus>

In code

<response>
  <href>/binding-b/child</href>
  <status>HTTP/1.1 208 Already Reported</status>
</response>

Notes

• 208 is normally used as an element inside a 207 body rather than as a standalone HTTP response.
• It is a specialized WebDAV code you will almost never meet in ordinary web or REST work.

Related status codes

Specification