Two commonly used methods for a request-response between a client and server are: GET and POST.
- GET - Requests data from a specified resource
- POST - Submits data to be processed to a specified resource
GET request
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.
The query string (name/value pairs) is sent in the URL of a GET request.
Some other notes on GET requests:
- can be cached
- remain in the browser history
- can be bookmarked
- should never be used when dealing with sensitive data
- have length restrictions
- should be used only to retrieve data
POST request
A POST request is used to send data to the server, for example, customer information, file upload, etc. using HTML forms.
The query string (name/value pairs) is sent in the HTTP message body of a POST request.
Some other notes on POST requests:
- are never cached
- do not remain in the browser history
- cannot be bookmarked
- have no restrictions on data length