HTTP DELETE, 410 Gone

[karlcow]

Deleting a URI doesn't mean that you have to destroy the content associated to the URI. URI is just an identifier giving a reference to access a content (not to create or destroy content). You might want in your system for example to hide the content from the information space or if you prefer to unload the content from the Web realm.

An HTTP DELETE could for example inform the system to move the content of the Web server to a local archive system. The URI itself still exists because the server returns 410 Gone.

[karlcow]

If the server does not know, or has no facility to determine, whether or not the condition is permanent, the status code 404 (Not Found) SHOULD be used instead.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-15#section-8.4.11