About
The http method 1) is a mandatory header of http request that defines the type of operation.
Example
A minimal get request from this page
GET https://datacadamia.com/web/http/method HTTP/1.1
Host: datacadamia.com
List
HTTP defines a set of operations. By order of most frequent:
| Method | UnSafe Change state ? | Description | Cached by default | Html element | Request Body Used | May be cached |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GET | No | (Default) Transfer a current representation of the target resource. Commonly used to download web pages A GET request retrieve data. GET requests will never cause an update or change to your data because they’re safe and idempotent. | Yes | Html, Img, Link | No | Yes |
| POST | Yes | Perform resource-specific processing on the request payload. Commonly used to transmit form submission data to a web server. A POST request creates generally new resources.. | No | Form | Yes | No |
| PATCH | Yes | Update a resource With PATCH requests, you only need to provide the data you want to change | No | |||
| PUT | Yes | Replace all current representations of the target resource with the request payload. Create or update a resource May be used for Data syncing | No | No | ||
| HEAD | No | Same as GET, but only transfer the status line and header section. | No | No | ||
| DELETE | Yes | Remove all current representations of the target resource | No | No | ||
| CONNECT | No | Establish a tunnel to the server identified by the target resource. | No | No | ||
| OPTIONS | No | Describe the cross communication options for the target resource. | No | No | ||
| TRACE | No | Perform a message loop-back test along the path to the target resource. | No | No |
Other protocols based on HTTP can define additional methods.
All general-purpose servers MUST support the methods GET and HEAD. All other methods are OPTIONAL.
A request method is considered idempotent
Syntax
The syntax is defined in the section 3.1.1. Request Line
In a http message
method = token
where token defines the method
Management
Allowed
The set of methods allowed by a target resource can be listed in an Allow header field (Section 7.4.1).
However, the set of allowed methods can change dynamically.
When a request method is received that is:
- unrecognized or not implemented by an origin server, the origin server SHOULD respond with the 501 (Not Implemented) status code.
- known by an origin server but not allowed for the target resource, the origin server SHOULD respond with the 405 (Method Not Allowed) status code.
Safe/Unsafe
Safe request have methods that does not changes state while unsafe request does.