What s the difference between a POST and a PUT HTTP REQUEST

Question

They both seem to be sending data to the server inside the body  so what makes them different

User · Answer

PUT is meant as a a method for  uploading  stuff to a particular URI  or overwriting what is already in that URI   POST  on the other hand  is a way of submitting data RELATED to a given URI   Refer to the HTTP RFC

User · Answer

GET  Retrieves data from the server  Should have no other effect  PUT  Replaces target resource with the request payload  Can be used to update or create a new resources  PATCH  Similar to PUT  but used to update only certain fields within an existing resource  POST  Performs resource-specific processing on the payload  Can be used for different actions including creating a new resource  uploading a file or submitting a web form  DELETE  Removes data from the server  TRACE  Provides a way to test what server receives  It simply returns what was sent  OPTIONS  Allows a client to get information about the request methods supported by a service  The relevant response header is Allow with supported methods  Also used in CORS as preflight request to inform server about actual request method and ask about custom headers  HEAD  Returns only the response headers  CONNECT  Used by browser when it knows it talks to a proxy and the final URI begins with https     The intent of CONNECT is to allow end-to-end encrypted TLS session  so the data is unreadable to a proxy

User · Answer

Both PUT and POST are Rest Methods    PUT - If we make the same request twice using PUT using same parameters both times  the second request will not have any effect  This is why PUT is generally used for the Update scenario calling Update more than once with the same parameters doesn t do anything more than the initial call hence PUT is idempotent     POST is not idempotent    for instance Create will create two separate entries into the target hence it is not idempotent so CREATE is used widely in POST   Making the same call using POST with same parameters each time will cause two different things to happen  hence why POST is commonly used for the Create scenario

User · Answer

Actually there s no difference other than their title  There s actually a basic difference between GET and the others  With a  GET -Request method  you send the data in the url-address-line  which are separated first by a question-mark  and then with a  amp  sign   But with a  POST -request method  you can t pass data through the url  but you have to pass the data as an object in the so called  body  of the request  On the server side  you have then to read out the body of the received content in order to get the sent data  But there s on the other side no possibility to send content in the body  when you send a  GET -Request   The claim  that  GET  is only for getting data and  POST  is for posting data  is absolutely wrong  Noone can prevent you from creating new content  deleting existing content  editing existing content or do whatever in the backend  based on the data  that is sent by the  GET  request or by the  POST  request  And nobody can prevent you to code the backend in a way  that with a  POST -Request  the client asks for some data   With a request  no matter which method you use  you call a URL and send or don t send some data to specify  which information you want to pass to the server to deal with your request  and then the client gets an answer from the server  The data can contain whatever you want to send  the backend is allowed to do whatever it wants with the data and the response can contain any information  that you want to put in there   There are only these two BASIC METHODS  GET and POST  But it s their structure  which makes them different and not what you code in the backend  In the backend you can code whatever you want to  with the received data  But with the  POST -request you have to send retrieve the data in the body and not in the url-addressline  and with a  GET  request  you have to send retrieve data in the url-addressline and not in the body  That s all    All the other methods  like  PUT    DELETE  and so on  they have the same structure as  POST     The POST Method is mainly used  if you want to hide the content somewhat  because whatever you write in the url-addressline  this will be saved in the cache and a GET-Method is the same as writing a url-addressline with data  So if you want to send sensitive data  which is not always necessarily username and password  but for example some ids or hashes  which you don t want to be shown in the url-address-line  then you should use the POST method   Also the URL-Addressline s length is limited to 1024 symbols  whereas the  POST -Method is not restricted  So if you have a bigger amount of data  you might not be able to send it with a GET-Request  but you ll need to use the POST-Request  So this is also another plus point for the POST-request   But dealing with the GET-request is way easier  when you don t have complicated text to send  Otherwise  and this is another plus point for the POST method  is  that with the GET-method you need to url-encode the text  in order to be able to send some symbols within the text or even spaces  But with a POST method you have no restrictions and your content doesn t need to be changed or manipulated in any way

User · Answer

It would be worth mentioning that POST is subject to some common Cross-Site Request Forgery  CSRF  attacks while PUT isn t  The CSRF below are not possible with PUT when the victim visits attackersite com  The effect of the attack is that the victim unintentionally deletes a user just because it  the victim  was logged-in as admin on target site com  before visiting attackersite com  Malicious code on attackersite com  Case 1  Normal request  saved target site com cookies will automatically be sent by the browser   note  supporting PUT only  at the endpoint  is safer because it is not a supported  lt form gt  attribute value   lt  --deletes user with id 5-- gt   lt form id  quot myform quot  method  quot post quot  action  quot http   target site com deleteUser quot   gt       lt input type  quot hidden quot  name  quot userId quot  value  quot 5 quot  gt   lt  form gt   lt script gt document createElement  form   submit call document getElementById  myform     lt  script gt   Case 2  XHR request  saved target site com cookies will automatically be sent by the browser   note  supporting PUT only  at the endpoint  is safer because an attempt to send PUT would trigger a preflight request  whose response would prevent the browser from requesting the deleteUser page    deletes user with id 5 var xhr   new XMLHttpRequest    xhr open  quot POST quot    quot http   target site com deleteUser quot    xhr withCredentials true  xhr send   quot userId 5 quot       MDN Ref       Unlike    simple requests     discussed above   --   Means  POST GET HEAD   --  for  quot preflighted quot  requests the browser first sends an HTTP request using the OPTIONS method       cors in action        Certain types of requests  such as DELETE or PUT  need to go a step further and ask for the server   s permission before making the actual request    what is called a preflight request

User · Answer

Please see  http   zacharyvoase com 2009 07 03 http-post-put-diff   I   ve been getting pretty annoyed lately by a popular misconception by web developers that a POST is used to create a resource  and a PUT is used to update change one   If you take a look at page 55 of RFC 2616     Hypertext Transfer Protocol     HTTP 1 1      Section 9 6     PUT      you   ll see what PUT is actually for      The PUT method requests that the enclosed entity be stored under the supplied Request-URI    There   s also a handy paragraph to explain the difference between POST and PUT      The fundamental difference between the POST and PUT requests is reflected in the different meaning of the Request-URI  The URI in a POST request identifies the resource that will handle the enclosed entity  That resource might be a data-accepting process  a gateway to some other protocol  or a separate entity that accepts annotations  In contrast  the URI in a PUT request identifies the entity enclosed with the request     the user agent knows what URI is intended and the server MUST NOT attempt to apply the request to some other resource    It doesn   t mention anything about the difference between updating creating  because that   s not what it   s about  It   s about the difference between this   obj set attribute value    A POST request    And this   obj attribute   value   A PUT request    So please  stop the spread of this popular misconception  Read your RFCs

User · Answer

The request methods GET  PUT and DELETE are CRUD  create  read  update and delete  operations   that is data management operations   on the state of a target resource  the one identified by the request URI    GET should read the state of the target resource  PUT should create or update the state of the target resource  DELETE should delete the state of the target resource   The request method POST is a different beast  It should not create the state of the target resource like PUT because it is a process operation with a higher-level goal than CRUD  cf  RFC 7231     4 3 3   The process may create a resource but different from the target resource  otherwise the lower-level goal request method PUT should be used  so even in this case that does not make it a CRUD operation  The difference between CRUD operations  GET  PUT and DELETE in HTTP  and non-CRUD operations  POST in HTTP  is the difference between abstract data types and objects that Alan Kay was stressing in most of his talks and his ACM paper The Early History of Smalltalk   What I got from Simula was that you could now replace bindings and assignments with goals  The last thing you wanted any programmer to do is mess with internal state even if presented figuratively  Instead  the objects should be presented as sites of higher level behaviors more appropriate for use as dynamic components        It is unfortunate that much of what is called  quot object-oriented programming quot  today is simply old style programming with fancier constructs  Many programs are loaded with  quot assignment-style quot  operations now done by more expensive attached procedures        Assignment statements   even abstract ones   express very low-level goals  and more of them will be needed to get anything done        Another way to think of all this is  though the late-binding of automatic storage allocations doesn   t do anything a programmer can   t do  its presence leads both to simpler and more powerful code  OOP is a late binding strategy for many things and all of them together hold off fragility and size explosion much longer than the older methodologies

User · Answer

A POST is considered something of a factory type method   You include data with it to create what you want and whatever is on the other end knows what to do with it   A PUT is used to update existing data at a given URL  or to create something new when you know what the URI is going to be and it doesn t already exist  as opposed to a POST which will create something and return a URL to it if necessary

User · Answer

As far as i know  PUT is mostly used for update the records     POST - To create document or any other resource PUT  - To update the created document or any other resource    But to be clear on that PUT usually  Replaces  the existing record if it is there and creates if it not there

User · Answer

Only semantics   An HTTP PUT is supposed to accept the body of the request  and then store that at the resource identified by the URI   An HTTP POST is more general   It is supposed to initiate an action on the server   That action could be to store the request body at the resource identified by the URI  or it could be a different URI  or it could be a different action   PUT is like a file upload   A put to a URI affects exactly that URI   A POST to a URI could have any effect at all

User · Answer

The difference between POST and PUT is that PUT is idempotent  that means  calling the same PUT request multiple times will always produce the same result that is no side effect   while on the other hand  calling a POST request repeatedly may have  additional  side effects  of creating the same resource multiple times   GET   Requests using GET only retrieve data   that is it requests a representation of the specified resource  POST   It sends data to the server to create a resource  The type of the body of the request is indicated by the Content-Type header  It often causes a change in state or side effects on the server  PUT   Creates a new resource or replaces a representation of the target resource with the request payload  PATCH   It is used to apply partial modifications to a resource  DELETE   It deletes the specified resource  TRACE   It performs a message loop-back test along the path to the target resource  providing a useful debugging mechanism  OPTIONS   It is used to describe the communication options for the target resource  the client can specify a URL for the OPTIONS method  or an asterisk     to refer to the entire server   HEAD   It asks for a response identical to that of a GET request  but without the response body  CONNECT   It establishes a tunnel to the server identified by the target resource    can be used to access websites that use SSL  HTTPS

User · Answer

Others have already posted excellent answers  I just wanted to add that with most languages  frameworks  and use cases you ll be dealing with POST much  much more often than PUT   To the point where PUT  DELETE  etc  are basically trivia questions

User · Answer

HTTP PUT   PUT puts a file or resource at a specific URI  and exactly at that URI  If there s already a file or resource at that URI  PUT replaces that file or resource   If there is no file or resource there  PUT creates one  PUT is idempotent  but paradoxically PUT responses are not cacheable   HTTP 1 1 RFC location for PUT  HTTP POST    POST sends data to a specific URI and expects the resource at that URI to handle the request   The web server at this point can determine what to do with the data in the context of the specified resource  The POST method is not idempotent  however POST responses are cacheable so long as the server sets the appropriate Cache-Control and Expires headers   The official HTTP RFC specifies POST to be    Annotation of existing resources  Posting a message to a bulletin board  newsgroup  mailing list     or similar group of articles  Providing a block of data  such as the result of submitting a     form  to a data-handling process  Extending a database through an append operation     HTTP 1 1 RFC location for POST  Difference between POST and PUT   The RFC itself explains the core difference      The fundamental difference between the   POST and PUT requests is reflected in   the different meaning of the   Request-URI  The URI in a POST request   identifies the resource that will   handle the enclosed entity  That   resource might be a data-accepting   process  a gateway to some other   protocol  or a separate entity that   accepts annotations  In contrast  the   URI in a PUT request identifies the   entity enclosed with the request --   the user agent knows what URI is   intended and the server MUST NOT   attempt to apply the request to some   other resource  If the server desires   that the request be applied to a   different URI  it MUST send a 301  Moved Permanently  response  the user agent MAY then make   its own decision regarding whether or not to redirect the request    Additionally  and a bit more concisely  RFC 7231 Section 4 3 4 PUT states  emphasis added       4 3 4   PUT      The PUT method requests that the state of the target resource be     created or replaced with the state defined by the representation     enclosed in the request message payload    Using the right method  unrelated aside   One benefit of REST ROA vs SOAP is that when using HTTP REST ROA  it encourages the proper usage of the HTTP verbs methods   So for example you would only use PUT when you want to create a resource at that exact location   And you would never use GET to create or modify a resource

User · Answer

Define operations in terms of HTTP methods The HTTP protocol defines a number of methods that assign semantic meaning to a request  The common HTTP methods used by most RESTful web APIs are  GET retrieves a representation of the resource at the specified URI  The body of the response message contains the details of the requested resource  POST creates a new resource at the specified URI  The body of the request message provides the details of the new resource  Note that POST can also be used to trigger operations that don t actually create resources  PUT either creates or replaces the resource at the specified URI  The body of the request message specifies the resource to be created or updated  PATCH performs a partial update of a resource  The request body specifies the set of changes to apply to the resource  DELETE removes the resource at the specified URI  The effect of a specific request should depend on whether the resource is a collection or an individual item  The following table summarizes the common conventions adopted by most RESTful implementations using the e-commerce example  Not all of these requests might be implemented   it depends on the specific scenario      Resource POST GET PUT DELETE      customers Create a new customer Retrieve all customers Bulk update of customers Remove all customers    customers 1 Error Retrieve the details for customer 1 Update the details of customer 1 if it exists Remove customer 1    customers 1 orders Create a new order for customer 1 Retrieve all orders for customer 1 Bulk update of orders for customer 1 Remove all orders for customer 1     The differences between POST  PUT  and PATCH can be confusing  A POST request creates a resource  The server assigns a URI for the new resource and returns that URI to the client  In the REST model  you frequently apply POST requests to collections  The new resource is added to the collection  A POST request can also be used to submit data for processing to an existing resource  without any new resource being created  A PUT request creates a resource or updates an existing resource  The client specifies the URI for the resource  The request body contains a complete representation of the resource  If a resource with this URI already exists  it is replaced  Otherwise  a new resource is created  if the server supports doing so  PUT requests are most frequently applied to resources that are individual items  such as a specific customer  rather than collections  A server might support updates but not creation via PUT  Whether to support creation via PUT depends on whether the client can meaningfully assign a URI to a resource before it exists  If not  then use POST to create resources and PUT or PATCH to update  A PATCH request performs a partial update to an existing resource  The client specifies the URI for the resource  The request body specifies a set of changes to apply to the resource  This can be more efficient than using PUT  because the client only sends the changes  not the entire representation of the resource  Technically PATCH can also create a new resource  by specifying a set of updates to a  quot null quot  resource   if the server supports this  PUT requests must be idempotent  If a client submits the same PUT request multiple times  the results should always be the same  the same resource will be modified with the same values   POST and PATCH requests are not guaranteed to be idempotent

User · Answer

It should be pretty straightforward when to use one or the other  but complex wordings are a source of confusion for many of us   When to use them    Use PUT when you want to modify a singular resource that is already a part of resource collection  PUT replaces the resource in its entirety  Example  PUT  resources  resourceId  Sidenote  Use PATCH if you want to update a part of the resource       Use POST when you want to add a child resource under a collection of resources  Example  POST   gt   resources     In general    Generally  in practice  always use PUT for UPDATE operations  Always use POST for CREATE operations      Example   GET      company reports         Get all reports GET      company reports  id     Get the report information identified by  id  POST     company reports         Create a new report PUT      company reports  id     Update the report information identified by  id  PATCH      company reports  id     Update a part of the report information identified by  id  DELETE     company reports  id     Delete report by  id

User · Answer

In simple words you can say   1 HTTP Get It is used to get one or more items  2 HTTP Post It is used to create an item  3 HTTP Put It is used to update an item  4 HTTP Patch It is used to partially update an item  5 HTTP Delete It is used to delete an item

User · Answer

To give examples of REST-style resources  POST  books with a bunch of book information might create a new book  and respond with the new URL identifying that book   books 5  PUT  books 5 would have to either create a new book with the id of 5  or replace the existing book with ID 5  In non-resource style  POST can be used for just about anything that has a side effect  One other difference is that PUT should be idempotent - multiple PUTs of the same data to the same URL should be fine  whereas multiple POSTs might create multiple objects or whatever it is your POST action does

User · Answer

REST-ful usage  POST is used to create a new resource and then returns the resource URI  EX        REQUEST   POST      books                    book   booName            author   authorName              This call may create a new book and returns that book URI  Response    THE-NEW-RESOURCE-URI books 5   PUT is used to replace a resource  if that resource is exist then simply update it  but if that resource doesn t exist then create it    REQUEST   PUT      books 5    book   booName    author   authorName      With PUT we know the resource identifier  but POST will return the new resource identifier   Non REST-ful usage   POST is used to initiate an action on the server side  this action may or may not create a resource  but this action will have side affects always it will change something on the server  PUT is used to place or replace literal content at a specific URL  Another difference in both REST-ful and non REST-ful styles  POST is Non-Idempotent Operation  It will cause some changes if executed multiple times with the same request   PUT is Idempotent Operation  It will have no side-effects if executed multiple times with the same request

[http] What's the difference between a POST and a PUT HTTP REQUEST?

Examples related to http

Examples related to post

Examples related to put