PHP HTTP request methods: the difference between GET and POST

HTTP request refers to the process in which the client initiates a request to the server to obtain server resources. As a programming language, PHP can initiate HTTP requests through various methods, among which the two most commonly used request methods are GET and POST. This article will focus on the differences between these two methods.

1. GET request method

The GET request method is one of the more commonly used request methods in the HTTP protocol. When the client needs to obtain a resource from the server, it will send a GET request to the server. The request message contains the URL of the resource to be obtained and some optional request parameters, such as:

GET /path/to/resource HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:54.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/54.0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Referer: https://www.google.com/

In a GET request, all request parameters will be spliced ​​into the URL, separated by question marks (?). For example:

GET /path/to/resource?id=123&name=example HTTP/1.1

The advantage of the GET request is that the request parameters can be placed directly in the URL, making it easy to debug and transfer information. Moreover, GET requests do not need to establish a connection and wait for the server to respond like POST requests, and the speed will be relatively faster. However, GET requests also have some shortcomings: first, request parameters are easily intercepted, posing security risks; second, because the number and length of request parameters are limited, GET requests are suitable for scenarios where a small amount of data is obtained.

2. POST request method

The POST request method is another commonly used HTTP request method. POST requests are often used to submit forms. After the user completes filling in the form, the form data is submitted to the server for processing. POST requests also need to establish a connection, but the data sent will be placed in the request body of the request message, rather than spliced ​​after the URL. For example:

POST /path/to/resource HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:54.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/54.0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Referer: https://www.google.com/
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 18

id=123&name=example

The request body of the POST request can store larger data volume, relatively high security, and suitable for scenarios where sensitive data is transmitted. Moreover, POST requests are not limited by URL length and are suitable for scenarios where large amounts of data are transmitted. However, since the POST request needs to wait for the server response, the speed will be slower than the GET request.

3. Summary

GET and POST request methods each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and the appropriate method should be selected based on actual needs. If the amount of data requested is small and sensitive data does not need to be transmitted, it is recommended to use a GET request. If the amount of data requested is large, or sensitive data needs to be transmitted, it is recommended to use POST requests.

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