RESTful - Verbs - Part I

December 12, 2019

We will be discussing about 9 HTTP Verbs, which are listed below :

  • GET
  • POST
  • PUT
  • PATCH
  • DELETE
  • HEAD
  • CONNECT
  • OPTION
  • TRACE

Before moving forward let us understand some common terminology, which is used to represent the property of the methods.

  1. Safe
  • A HTTP method is said to be safe, if it doesn’t alter the state of the server. Only read-only operations are safe.
  • Methods like Get, Head, Option.
  • All safe methods are idempotent.(GET, HEADS, OPTIONS)
  • But All idempotent methdos are not safe.(PUT, DELETE)
  1. Idempotent
  • if an identical request can be made once or more, several times in a row with the same effect while leaving the server in the same state.
  • The method should not have any side effect.
  • Implemented correctly, GET, HEADS, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE are idempotent.
  • POST method is not idempotent.
  1. Cacheable
  • A cacheable response is a http response, that can be cached i.e, stored to be retrieved and used later.
  • Saving a new request to the server.
  • Not all HTTP response can be cached.
  1. If the method is allowed in HTML Forms or Not.

Let’s now move ahead and learn about the HTTP Methods.

GET Method:

  • This method request a representation of specified resources.
  • Requests using GET should only retrieve data.
  • The GET request has body - No
  • Successful response has body - Yes
  • Safe : Yes
  • Idempotent : Yes
  • Allowed in HTML forms : Yes
  • Cacheable : Yes

POST Method:

  • Sends data to the server
  • The type of the body of the request is indicated by the content-type header.
  • Difference between PUT and POST is : PUT is idempotent & POST is not.
  • Successive identical POST may have additional effects, like passing an order several times.
  • POST typically is sent via HTML forms.
  • POST typically result in the change on the server.
  • The content type is selected by putting the adequate string in the enctype attribute of the <form> element or the formenctype attribute of the or
  • The POST request has body - Yes
  • Successful response has body - Yes
  • Safe : No
  • Idempotent : No
  • Allowed in HTML forms : Yes
  • Cacheable : Only if freshness information is included

Happy Learning!

Rajiv Jha :)

Rajiv Jha

Rajiv Jha

My name is Rajiv Jha. I am Senior Engineering student at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.