# Open and closed indices
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/open-and-closed-indices/12374
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [June 12, 2013, 9:07am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/open-and-closed-indices/12374 "2013-06-12T09:07:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Andrej](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Andrej)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2013, 9:07am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/open-and-closed-indices/12374/1 "2013-06-12T09:07:25Z")
Hi,
as I have to do several things using http at the moment (I prefer the Java
API, honestly ;-)) I stumbled over some (probably pretty simple) questions.
One question would be: how can I figure out if an existing index is open or
closed? If closed it doesnt show up in the status response, but I dont
think thats the proper way to handle it. Did I oversee something obvious?
Can someone point me to where to look in the docs?
Another question is about return codes. When I open a closed index I get
return code 200 (OK), what is the expected result. But when I open an
already open index I also get a 200. As I think that attempting to open an
open index means I got something wrong (at least my assumptions) wouldnt it
be helpful to return something different instead (like maybe 409 (conflict)
or 412 (precondition failed))? Same goes for close. It should not stop or
throw exceptions, I think, but some kind of hint would be nice, wouldnt it?
😉
Thanks in advance!
Andrej
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 2:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/open-and-closed-indices/12374/2 "2017-07-06T02:31:41Z")