The latest articles on DEV Community by prateekagrawl (@prateekagrawl). https://dev.to/prateekagrawl https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F524935%2F48c0778d-a2e7-4fd1-b8f3-a2a42d051261.png https://dev.to/prateekagrawl en prateekagrawl Thu, 03 Dec 2020 16:17:05 +0000 https://dev.to/prateekagrawl/http-overview-and-its-request-methods-1mip https://dev.to/prateekagrawl/http-overview-and-its-request-methods-1mip <p><strong>What is HTTP?</strong><br> Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a set of rules which allows us to retrieve data from servers. It is the underlying format that is used to structure request and responses for effective communication between a client and a server. A complete document is constructed by making different calls to server. </p> <p><a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--wjhXm7y4--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://media.prod.mdn.mozit.cloud/attachments/2016/08/09/13677/d031b77dee83f372ffa4e0389d68108b/Fetching_a_page.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--wjhXm7y4--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://media.prod.mdn.mozit.cloud/attachments/2016/08/09/13677/d031b77dee83f372ffa4e0389d68108b/Fetching_a_page.png" alt="alt text"></a></p> <p>So like in communication we have sender and receiver, same is the case here. The former being the client i.e. browser(most of the times) and latter being the server here.</p> <p>Clients and servers communicate with each other through messages.The messages sent by the client are called <em>requests</em> and the messages sent by the server in reply are called <em>responses</em>.<br> Formally put through:</p> <blockquote> <p>HTTP is a client-server protocol: requests are sent by one entity (client) and response by the other entity (server).</p> </blockquote> <h1> HTTP Request Methods </h1> <p>There are many methods for the browser to make request to the server. It depends on the following operations. <br> <strong>CRUD: Create, Read, Update and Delete</strong>.</p> <h2> GET </h2> <p>GET is used to fetch data from a server. GET is one of the most popular HTTP request techniques. It does the operation of <strong>Read</strong> in the browser.</p> <h2> HEAD </h2> <p>The HEAD method requests a reaction that is similar to that of GET request, but it doesn’t have a message-body in the response.</p> <h2> POST </h2> <p>It is used to create a resource. It performs the operation of <strong>Create</strong> in the browser. It results in some changes in the server. A typical example for it would be uploading a photo on social media.</p> <h2> PUT </h2> <p>It is used to update a resource. It performs the operation of <strong>Update</strong> in the browser.</p> <p>The difference between POST and PUT is that PUT requests are <em>idempotent</em>. This means that if you call the same PUT requests multiple times, the results will always be the same. But the same is not true for POST. POST will result in changes in the server every time we do this.</p> <h2> DELETE </h2> <p>It is used to delete a resource.It performs the operation of <strong>Delete</strong> in the browser. This method is also idempotent.</p> <p><em>Note:</em> There are some other methods as well but these are the commonly used ones.</p> beginners http httprequests