- HTTP - Home
- HTTP - Overview
- HTTP - Parameters
- HTTP - Messages
- HTTP - Requests
- HTTP - Responses
- HTTP - Methods
- HTTP - Status Codes
- HTTP - Header Fields
- HTTP - Caching
- HTTP - URL Encoding
- HTTP - Security
- HTTP - Message Examples
- HTTP - Versions
- HTTP - Connection Management
- HTTP - Content Negotiation
- HTTP - Redirection
- HTTP - Authentication and Authorization
- HTTP - HTTP over TLS(HTTPS)
- HTTP - HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 Features
- HTTP - API Design Considerations
- HTTP - Troubleshooting
HTTP - Methods
HTTP request methods specifies action to be performed on resources. The set of common methods for HTTP/1.1 is defined below and this set can be expanded based on requirements. These method names are case sensitive and they must be used in uppercase.
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| GET | The GET method is used to retrieve information from the given server using a given URI. Requests using GET should only retrieve data and should have no other effect on the data. |
| HEAD | Same as GET, but transfers the status line and header section only. |
| POST | A POST request is used to send data to the server, for example, customer information, file upload, etc. using HTML forms. |
| PUT | Replaces all current representations of the target resource with the uploaded content. |
| DELETE | Removes all current representations of the target resource given by a URI. |
| CONNECT | Establishes a tunnel to the server identified by a given URI. |
| OPTIONS | Describes the communication options for the target resource. |
| TRACE | Performs a message loop-back test along the path to the target resource. |
GET Method
A GET request retrieves data from a web server by specifying parameters in the URL portion of the request. This is the main method used for document retrieval.
Example
The following example makes use of GET method to fetch index.htm:
GET /index.htm HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 Host: www.tutorialspoint.com Accept-Language: en-us Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate Connection: Keep-Alive
The server response against the above GET request will be as follows:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2024 18:59:38 GMT Server: Apache/2.4.59 (Ubuntu) ETag: "34aa387-d-1568eb00" Vary: Accept-Encoding,Origin Content-Length: 20241 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,user-scalable=yes, maximum-scale=1">
<title>Quality Tutorials, Video Courses, and eBooks - TutorialsPoint</title>
.
.
more content
</html>
HEAD Method
The HEAD method is functionally similar to GET, except that the server replies with a response line and headers, but no entity-body.
Example
The following example makes use of HEAD method to fetch header information about index.htm:
HEAD /index.htm HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 Host: www.tutorialspoint.com Accept-Language: en-us Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate Connection: Keep-Alive
The server response against the above HEAD request will be as follows:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2024 18:59:38 GMT Server: Apache/2.4.59 (Ubuntu) ETag: "34aa387-d-1568eb00" Vary: Accept-Encoding,Origin Content-Length: 20241 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
You can notice that here server the does not send any data after header.
POST Method
The POST method is used when you want to send some data to the server, for example, file update, form data, etc.
Example
The following example makes use of POST method to send a form data to the server, which will be processed by a process.cgi and finally a response will be returned:
POST /cgi-bin/process.cgi HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 Host: www.tutorialspoint.com Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Accept-Language: en-us Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate Connection: Keep-Alive
This is the request body which we are sending using POST method
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <string xmlns="http://clearforest.com/">string</string>
The server side script process.cgi processes the passed data and sends the following response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 05:07:16 GMT Server: Apache/2.4.59 (Ubuntu) ETag: "34aa387-d-1568eb00" Vary: Accept-Encoding,Origin Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 20241 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Connection: Closed
<html> <body> <h1>Request Processed Successfully</h1> </body> </html>
PUT Method
The PUT method is used to request the server to store the included entity-body at a location specified by the given URL.
Example
The following example requests the server to save the given entity-body in index.htm at the root of the server:
PUT /index.htm HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE5.01; Windows NT) Host: www.tutorialspoint.com Accept-Language: en-us Connection: Keep-Alive Content-type: text/html Content-Length: 182
<html>
<body>
<h1>Hello, World!</h1>
</body>
</html>
The server will store the given entity-body in index.htm file and will send the following response back to the client:
HTTP/1.1 201 Created Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 12:49:53 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu) Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-length: 20241 Connection: Closed
<html>
<body>
<h1>The file was created.</h1>
</body>
</html>
DELETE Method
The DELETE method is used to request the server to delete a file at a location specified by the given URL.
Example
The following example requests the server to delete the given file index.htm at the root of the server:
DELETE /index.htm HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 Host: www.tutorialspoint.com Accept-Language: en-us Connection: Keep-Alive
The server will delete the mentioned file index.htm and will send the following response back to the client:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 11:52:10 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu) Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-length: 20241 Connection: Closed
<html>
<body>
<h1>URL deleted.</h1>
</body>
</html>
CONNECT Method
The CONNECT method is used by the client to establish a network connection to a web server over HTTP.
Example
The following example requests a connection with a web server running on the host tutorialspoint.com:
CONNECT www.tutorialspoint.com HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0
The connection is established with the server and the following response is sent back to the client:
HTTP/1.1 200 Connection established Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 11:54:12 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu)
OPTIONS Method
The OPTIONS method is used by the client to find out the HTTP methods and other options supported by a web server. The client can specify a URL for the OPTIONS method, or an asterisk (*) to refer to the entire server.
Example
The following example requests a list of methods supported by a web server running on tutorialspoint.com:
OPTIONS www.tutorialspoint.com/index.htm HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br Connection: Keep-Alive Access-Control-Request-Headers: * Access-Control-Request-Headers: GET Origin: *
The server will send an information based on the current configuration of the server, for example:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 12:07:26 GMT Server: Apache/2.4.59 (Ubuntu) Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Vary: Accept-Encoding,Origin Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Content-Encoding: gzip
TRACE Method
The TRACE method is used to echo the contents of an HTTP Request back to the requester which can be used for debugging purpose at the time of development.
Example
The following example shows the usage of TRACE method:
TRACE / HTTP/1.1 Host: www.tutorialspoint.com User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0
The server will send the following message in response to the above request:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 12:16:47 GMT Server: Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu) Connection: close Content-Type: message/http Content-Length: 39