The difference between POST and PUT methods

With the rapid development of the Internet, websites and applications have become more and more common, and the web development related to them has become increasingly important. In web development, HTTP is one of the most commonly used protocols, which defines the communication rules between clients and servers. In the HTTP protocol, there are many different request methods, two of which are commonly used: POST and PUT.

The POST and PUT methods are both used to create or update resources on the server. Although their purpose is similar, there are some differences in usage and semantics.

First of all, the POST method is used to create new resources. When the client sends a POST request, the server creates a new resource at the specified resource location. This means that the POST request will create a new instance or record on the server side, and the URI of this instance is assigned by the server. For example, when we publish a new article on a blog website, we can use the POST method to send the article content to the server and let the server create a new article instance. At this point, the server may return a response containing the new article URI.

The PUT method is used to update existing resources. When a client sends a PUT request, the server updates the specified resource using the data provided in the request. The server uses the identifier specified in the URI to locate the resource to be updated and updates it based on the data provided in the request. In fact, a PUT request requires the client to provide a complete representation of the resource, not just the fields to be updated. For example, when we want to update an existing blog article, we can use the PUT method to send the entire article containing the updated content to the server and ask the server to use this new content to replace the old content.

In addition, the POST method also has a special function of repeatable submission. This means we can send the same POST request multiple times, and each time a new resource instance will be created on the server. This is different from the PUT method, which is idempotent, that is, sending the same PUT request multiple times will perform the same update operation on the resource and will not result in multiple identical resource instances.

Another difference is that the POST method is not secure on the network because it usually involves the submission and processing of data. Some potential security issues may arise. In contrast, the PUT method is idempotent and safe because it only involves the update of resources and not the creation of resources, and does not pose any potential security threats to the server.

In short, the POST and PUT methods are used to create or update resources in the HTTP protocol. The main difference between them is that the POST method is used to create new resources, while the PUT method is used to update existing resources. In addition, the POST method can be submitted repeatedly, while the PUT method is idempotent. Furthermore, the POST method is non-safe, while the PUT method is idempotent and safe. In practical applications, we should choose the appropriate method to implement our functions according to our needs.

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