GET and POST Methods

The GET method can be used in client mode to retrieve a page specified by the URL or to retrieve information from a form-based Web page by submitting URL-encoded key and name value pairs. In the latter case, the page must support the GET method.

The following example shows a URL-encoded query string:

http://.../bin/query?p=seebeyond+integrator

The URL specifies the search page and the name-value pair for the search. The question mark (?) indicates the beginning of the name-value pair encoding. In the previous example, the name portion of the query is “p,” and the value to search is “seebeyond integrator.” A query can consist of one or more of these name-value pairs.

See the official HTTP Specification for complete information.

The POST method is more versatile, in that it supports form-based requests, as well as sending large amounts of data. The POST method does not have the size-limitation maximum of 255 or 1024 characters (depending on the Web server), which the GET method has. As with GET, the Web page must support the POST method in order to use POST.

Taking the previous URL as an example, if you specify the following URL:

http://.../bin/query

Then, you can specify the name-value pair separately. The HTTP client allows for the specification of the URL and n-number of value pairs via its methods.