HTTP Requests

An HTTP request consists of a request method, a request URL, header fields, and a body. HTTP 1.1 defines the following request methods:

GET: Retrieves the resource identified by the request URL
HEAD: Returns the headers identified by the request URL
POST: Sends data of unlimited length to the Web server
PUT: Stores a resource under the request URL
DELETE: Removes the resource identified by the request URL
OPTIONS: Returns the HTTP methods the server supports
TRACE: Returns the header fields sent with the TRACE request

HTTP 1.0 includes only the GET, HEAD, and POST methods. Although J2EE servers are required to support only HTTP 1.0, in practice many servers, including the Application Server, support HTTP 1.1.