Return a response that has no content (merely headers). The options argument is interpreted to be a hash of header names and values. This allows you to easily return a response that consists only of significant headers:

head :created, :location => person_path(@person)

It can also be used to return exceptional conditions:

return head(:method_not_allowed) unless request.post?
return head(:bad_request) unless valid_request?
render

Source Code

# File action_controller/base.rb, line 947
def head(*args)
  if args.length > 2
    raise ArgumentError, "too many arguments to head"
  elsif args.empty?
    raise ArgumentError, "too few arguments to head"
  end
  options = args.extract_options!
  status = interpret_status(args.shift || options.delete(:status) || :ok)

  options.each do |key, value|
    headers[key.to_s.dasherize.split(/-/).map { |v| v.capitalize }.join("-")] = value.to_s
  end

  render :nothing => true, :status => status
end