{{HTTPSidebar}}
HTTP defines a set of request methods to indicate the desired action to be performed for a given resource. Although they can also be nouns, these requests methods are sometimes referred as HTTP verbs. Each of them implements a different semantic, but some common features are shared by a group of them: e.g. a request method can be {{glossary("safe")}}, {{glossary("idempotent")}}, or {{glossary("cacheable")}}.
GET
- The
GET
method requests a representation of the specified resource. Requests usingGET
should only retrieve data. HEAD
- The
HEAD
method asks for a response identical to that of aGET
request, but without the response body. POST
- The
POST
method is used to submit an entity to the specified resource, often causing a change in state or side effects on the server PUT
-
The
PUT
method replaces all current representations of the target resource with the request payload. DELETE
- The
DELETE
method deletes the specified resource. CONNECT
-
The
CONNECT
method establishes a tunnel to the server identified by the target resource. OPTIONS
- The
OPTIONS
method is used to describe the communication options for the target resource. TRACE
-
The
TRACE
method performs a message loop-back test along the path to the target resource. PATCH
- The
PATCH
method is used to apply partial modifications to a resource.
Specifications
Specification | Title | Comment |
---|---|---|
{{RFC("7231", "Request methods", "4")}} | Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content | Specifies GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, CONNECT, OPTIONS, TRACE. |
{{RFC("5789", "Patch method", "2")}} | PATCH Method for HTTP | Specifies PATCH. |
Browser compatibility
To contribute to this compatibility data, please write a pull request against this file: https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data/blob/master/http/methods.json.
{{Compat}}