This article sums it up pretty well
Summary: It's implementation dependent, as there is no specified limit in the RFC. It'd be safe to use up to 2000 characters (IE's limit.) If you are anywhere near this length, you should make sure you really need URIs that long, maybe an alternative design could get around that.
URIs should be readable, even when used to send data.
The specification does not limit the length of an HTTP Get request but the different browsers implement their own limitations. For example Internet Explorer has a limitation implemented at 2083 characters.
This article sums it up pretty well
Summary: It's implementation dependent, as there is no specified limit in the RFC. It'd be safe to use up to 2000 characters (IE's limit.) If you are anywhere near this length, you should make sure you really need URIs that long, maybe an alternative design could get around that.
URIs should be readable, even when used to send data.
Not in the RFC, no, but there are practical limits.
The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs. A server SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15).
Note: Servers should be cautious about depending on URI lengths above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy implementations may not properly support these lengths.
This article sums it up pretty well
Summary: It's implementation dependent, as there is no specified limit in the RFC. It'd be safe to use up to 2000 characters (IE's limit.) If you are anywhere near this length, you should make sure you really need URIs that long, maybe an alternative design could get around that.
URIs should be readable, even when used to send data.
Not in the RFC, no, but there are practical limits.
The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs. A server SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15).
Note: Servers should be cautious about depending on URI lengths above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy implementations may not properly support these lengths.
setFixedLengthStreamingMode(int) with contentLength parameters could set the fixed length of a HTTP request body.
As Requested By User Erickson, I Post My comment As Answer:
I have done some more testing with IE8, IE9, FF14, Opera11, Chrome20 and Tomcat 6.0.32 (fresh installation), Jersey 1.13 on the server side. I used the jQuery function $.getJson and JSONP. Results: All Browsers allowed up to around 5400 chars. FF and IE9 did up to around 6200 chars. Everything above returned "400 Bad request". I did not further investigate what was responsible for the 400. I was fine with the maximum I found, because I needed around 2000 chars in my case.
W3C unequivocally disclaimed this as a myth here
The specification does not limit the length of an HTTP Get request but the different browsers implement their own limitations. For example Internet Explorer has a limitation implemented at 2083 characters.
Not in the RFC, no, but there are practical limits.
The HTTP protocol does not place any a priori limit on the length of a URI. Servers MUST be able to handle the URI of any resource they serve, and SHOULD be able to handle URIs of unbounded length if they provide GET-based forms that could generate such URIs. A server SHOULD return 414 (Request-URI Too Long) status if a URI is longer than the server can handle (see section 10.4.15).
Note: Servers should be cautious about depending on URI lengths above 255 bytes, because some older client or proxy implementations may not properly support these lengths.
W3C unequivocally disclaimed this as a myth here
setFixedLengthStreamingMode(int) with contentLength parameters could set the fixed length of a HTTP request body.
The specification does not limit the length of an HTTP Get request but the different browsers implement their own limitations. For example Internet Explorer has a limitation implemented at 2083 characters.
This article sums it up pretty well
Summary: It's implementation dependent, as there is no specified limit in the RFC. It'd be safe to use up to 2000 characters (IE's limit.) If you are anywhere near this length, you should make sure you really need URIs that long, maybe an alternative design could get around that.
URIs should be readable, even when used to send data.
Source: Stackoverflow.com