Proper REST response for current user when no user is logged in

Question

I have an endpoint that requests the current logged in user.

GET /user/current source

If a user is found, the server sends 200 OK and the user object.

But what if no one is logged in? Should the server send back 200 Ok with an empty object?

This post asked a similar question:

For example you run a GET request for users/9 but there is no user with id #9. Which is the best response code?

The top answer was 404 Not Found. But this doesn't seem correct to me for a current user request with no logged in user. In this case the answer was found- the answer is that no user is logged in.

Answer 1

401 would be valid only when authorization is required for making that call to that end point and it was not provided.

If that's an endpoint which doesn't require authentication then 404 is correct

You can also use 200 with current user as null if the response is usually a json string . If it's usually a json array return empty array with status 200 .

You can also use 204 no content

Answer 2

I believe you want 401 Unauthorized