HTTP Method

Overview[1]#

HTTP Method (sometimes referred to as verb) to indicate the desired action to be performed on the identified resource.

What this resource represents, whether pre-existing data or data that is generated dynamically, depends on the implementation of the Service Provider.

Often, the resource corresponds to a file or the output of an executable residing on the server.

The HTTP/1.0 specification[11] defines the

HTTP Method

The HTTP/1.1 specification[12] added 5 new methods:

By being specified in these documents their semantics are well known and can be depended on. Any client can use any method and the server can be configured to support any combination of methods.

If a method is unknown to an intermediate it will be treated as an unsafe and non-idempotent method. There is no limit to the number of methods that can be defined and this allows for future methods to be specified without breaking existing infrastructure. For example, WebDAV defined 7 new methods and RFC 5789 specified the HTTP PATCH method.

HTTP MethodRFCRequest Has BodyResponse Has BodySafeIdempotentCacheable]
GETRFC 7231NoYesYesYesYes
HEADRFC 7231NoNoYesYesYes
POSTRFC 7231YesYesNoNoYes
PUTRFC 7231YesYesNoYesNo
DELETERFC 7231NoYesNoYesNo
CONNECTRFC 7231YesYesNoNoNo
OPTIONSRFC 7231NoYesYesYesNo
TRACERFC 7231NoYesYesYesNo
PATCHRFC 5789YesYesNoNoYes

HTTP verbs are:

We think of them as mapping to the acronym, CRUD (Create-Read-Update-Delete).)
We speak more on this on Create Read Update Delete in the section For SQL And HTTP REST

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