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HTTP Basics

HTTP, or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, is a stateless application-level protocol used for transferring textual data between clients and servers. It defines various request methods (GET, POST, etc.) and response structures, allowing clients to request resources and servers to respond with data or error codes. Key concepts include the differences between GET and POST methods, the use of query strings, and the classification of methods as safe or idempotent.

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6 views3 pages

HTTP Basics

HTTP, or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, is a stateless application-level protocol used for transferring textual data between clients and servers. It defines various request methods (GET, POST, etc.) and response structures, allowing clients to request resources and servers to respond with data or error codes. Key concepts include the differences between GET and POST methods, the use of query strings, and the classification of methods as safe or idempotent.

Uploaded by

sutaraaditya36
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is HTTP?

HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol which is an application level protocol
for transferring textual data between client and server.

HTTP is stateless protocol.

Web Client such as web browser sends the request to server, server responds and
sends the requested data (such as a HTML document) or returns error code and closes
the connection. Once the response is returned, server doesn�t remember anything
about the client.(even the very next request)

Http request methods and Headers


eg : URL -- http://www.server.com:8080/bank/login.html
Whenever the client sends the request to server for any resource such as a HTML
document, it specifies
1. HTTP method (get/post/put/delete....)
2. Request URI (eg : /bank/login.html)
3. Protocol version
4. Optional Header information(eg : accept , cookies)

After the client sends the request, server processes the request and sends the
response.

HTTP Response contains

1. Response status information(eg : 404/200)


2. Response headers (eg : cookies/resp cont type
eg : text/html, application/json image/gif.... /cont length)
3. Response data.

Following is an example of HTTP request which uses GET request method to ask for a
HTML document named tutorial.html using HTTP protocol version 1.1

GET /tutorial.html HTTP/1.1

Following is the example of request header, which provides additional information


about the request.

User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0; Windows 95)


Accept: image/gif, image/jpeg, text/*, */*
eg : text/html, text/xml,application/json

Above header specifies the information about the client software and what
MIME(Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extension) type the client accepts in response,
using User-Agent and Accept headers.

Http request methods

The request method indicates to the server what action to perform on the resource
identified by the request-URI.

HTTP 1.1 specifies these request methods:


GET, POST , HEAD,OPTIONS, PUT, TRACE, DELETE, CONNECT.
Servlets can process any of the above requests.

But GET and POST methods are most commonly used.


The GET request method -- safe(doesn't change state of the resource) & idempotent
(repeated reqs do not have any further side effects after the first request)

The GET request is used typically for getting static information from the server
such as HTML document, images, and CSS files.
It can be used to retrieve dynamic information also by appending query string at
the end of request URI.

Query String

Query string is used to pass additional request parameters along with the request.

Query string format

URL?name1=value1&name2=value&name3=value3 �.

eg -- http://www.abc.com/test/login.jsp?userid=10&name=abc&age=25

The POST request method

The POST request method is typically used to access OR create new dynamic
resources.

POST request is used to


1. send the large amount of data to the server.
2. upload files to servers
3. send serializable Java objects or raw bytes.

GET Vs POST

1.
GET request sends the request parameters as query string appended at the end of the
request URL, whereas POST request sends the request parameters as part of the HTTP
request body.

2.Unlike GET, POST request sends all the data as part of the HTTP request body, so
it doesn�t appear in browser address bar and cannot be bookmarked.

3. GET -- non-secure, POST -secure


GET -- idempotent
POST---non-idempotent

Typically use GET -- to retrieve stuff from server.


use POST -- for changing some state on server(something like update)

4. Some web servers limit the length of the URL.


So if in GET request -- too many parameters are appended in query string and URL
exceeds this length, some web servers might not accept the request.
For POST -- no such limitations.
----------------
Safe HTTP methods
HTTP methods are considered safe if they do not alter the server state. So safe
methods can only be used for read-only operations.

eg : GET, HEAD, OPTIONS and TRACE.

In practice it is often not possible to implement safe methods in a way they do not
alter any server state.

eg : a GET request might create log or update statistic values or trigger a cache
refresh on the server.

Idempotent HTTP methods

Idempotency means that multiple identical requests will have the same outcome. So
it does not matter if a request is sent once or multiple times.

The following HTTP methods are idempotent: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS, TRACE, PUT and
DELETE.

All safe HTTP methods are idempotent but PUT and DELETE are idempotent but not
safe.

Note that idempotency does not mean that the server has to respond in the same way
on each request.

eg : If you delete emp details by an id using DELETE request:


1st time , it will succeed(server will send resp status code 200) then next time
onwards ,since emp details are already deleted , server will send resp code 404
(indicating resource not found!)

HTTP method overview

The following table summarizes which HTTP methods are safe and idempotent:

HTTP Method Safe Idempotent


GET Yes Yes
HEAD Yes Yes
OPTIONS Yes Yes
TRACE Yes Yes
PUT No Yes
DELETE No Yes
POST No No
PATCH No No

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