Hypertext Transfer Protocol

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems.

Overview

HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, where hypertext documents include hyperlinks to other resources that the user can easily access.

Technical overview

HTTP resources

HTTP resources are identified and located on the network by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), using the Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI's) schemes http and https.

Request methods

HTTP defines methods to indicate the desired action to be performed on the identified resource:

• GET: Requests a representation of the specified resource
• POST: Submits data to be processed to the identified resource
• PUT: Uploads a representation of the specified resource
• DELETE: Deletes the specified resource

HTTP session

An HTTP session is a sequence of network request-response transactions. An HTTP client initiates a request by establishing a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection.

See also

• HTTPS
• HTTP/2
• HTTP/3

References

1. Berners-Lee, Tim (1991). "The Original HTTP Specification".
2. Fielding, Roy (1999). "RFC 2616: HTTP/1.1".