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What are the different HTTP request methods?

HTTP

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Wed Oct 06 2021

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2 min read

Saad Irfan

Saad Irfan

The web applications communicate to servers through REST APIs. These APIs use HTTP methods to perform different operations, and nine HTTP methods exist for making requests to the server. Four methods are the most common because they execute CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations.

GET

You use this HTTP method to request some resources from the server. It is equivalent to Read in the CRUD operations. Get method should only be used to fetch data from the server. The response is generally a JSON object with the data you requested. If the request is successful, you will also see a 200 status code.

POST

You use the POST method whenever you need to create a new record in the database. This method takes an object as a payload and sends it to the server. The server code then handles the data, processes it if needed, and puts it in the database.

PUT

You often need to update the existing data of the database, and the HTTP PUT method allows you to do just this. Like the POST method, it also takes an object and sends it to the server. The server processes the data and then updates the databases with the updated data.

DELETE

As the name suggests, this method exists to delete data off the server. It is provided with a payload with information like the ID of the record the user wants to delete. Once the ID is found on the server, it is deleted from the database.

PATCH

The PATCH request method is used to modify only the necessary part of the data or response. The PATCH method doesn't modify the entire response. It only modifies partial modifications to a resource.

Here is a list of the rest of the HTTP methods:

  • HEAD
  • CONNECT
  • OPTIONS
  • TRACE
# http-method# request-method