422 Unprocessable Content

The HTTP 422 Unprocessable Content client error response status code indicates that the server understood the content type of the request content, and the syntax of the request content was correct, but it was unable to process the contained instructions.

Clients that receive a 422 response should expect that repeating the request without modification will fail with the same error.

Status

http
422 Unprocessable Content

Examples

SHA validation failure

The following example makes a request to update file contents (based on GitHub's API). The content field is Base64 encoded and uses \n line feeds every 60 characters, with one terminating the string:

http
PUT /repos/mdn/content/contents/README.md HTTP/1.1
Host: api.example.com
Accept: application/vnd.github+json
Authorization: Bearer abcd123
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 165

{
  "message": "My commit",
  "content": "WW9zaGkgd2FzIHRoZXJlLCBzbyB3ZXJlIEF5c2UsIGFuZCBCZWxnaW4uIEl0\nIHdhcyBncmVhdCE=\n",
  "sha": "80e73970fdee49dbdbac27c1f565d1eb1975d519"
}

In this implementation, the server expects strictly RFC 4648-compliant Base64 encoded content (using strict encoding methods). A 422 Unprocessable Content response is returned and the message field provides context about the validation error:

http
HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocessable Content
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2024 12:00:00 GMT
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 187

{
  "message": "content is not valid Base64",
  "documentation_url": "https://docs.example.com/en/rest/repos/contents"
}

Specifications

Specification
HTTP Semantics
# status.422

See also