Comments on: POST vs. PUT

By: Ben Ramsey

Ben Ramsey — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:11:19 +0000

@Sudheer: That’s actually a really good question. I’ll do some digging around and see if I can come up with a little history lesson on that.

By: Sudheer

Sudheer — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:59:39 +0000

I’m really curious why many people ignored most HTTP verbs and stuck to only two – GET and POST, from the early days of HTTP?

By: Bernhard H.

Bernhard H. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:18:23 +0000

“The fundamental difference between the POST and PUT requests is reflected in the different meaning of the Request-URI. The URI in a POST request identifies the resource that will handle the enclosed entity.[...] In contrast, the URI in a PUT request identifies the entity enclosed with the request”

A cool thing about POST: “If a resource has been created on the origin server, the response SHOULD be 201 (Created) and contain an entity which describes the status of the request and refers to the new resource, and a Location header. ”

So apparently you can use both for updates and creates, its all about the URL. You just have to check the RFCs…

Maybe the problem with PUT and PHP is: PHP usually gets its input through HTML-forms that don’t support PUT. And most webbroswers only support POST/GET

By: Sudheer

Sudheer — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:12:52 +0000

@Ben Ramsey

From what I understand, you’d request the server to create a blog pots by making HTTP POST request to the URI, say for example, http://example.com/article. Or http://example.com/myname/article. In the latter example, the article would be subordinate to the resource ‘myname’.

“according to the spec, a blog post could be created with either a POST or a PUT request”

I agree that both POST and PUT can be used to create the resource. It is more likely, we create resources without specifying the URI at which the resource has to be created. Isn’t this an uncommon request to create a resource – PUT, http://example.com/article/4?

By: David

David — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:48:41 +0000

In a sense it’s a bit like INSERT vs REPLACE
PUT is similar to REPLACE
POST is similar to INSERT

By: Hodicska Gergely

Hodicska Gergely — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:25:10 +0000

And don’t forget that PUT should be idempotent!

By: Hodicska Gergely

Hodicska Gergely — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:51:42 +0000

I think a good rule of thumb is the following: you should use POST if you append to a resource and you don’t know in advance the URL of the created entity, and you use PUT if you know in advance the URL of the created entity or if you edit something.

By: jpauli

jpauli — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:44:08 +0000

Can we tell for simplicity that PUT just takes the Request-Uri and creates it as-is on the server, while POST is more prone to use a CGI script that could eventually do the same as PUT ?

By: Ben Ramsey

Ben Ramsey — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:03:55 +0000

I’m not sure I understand your “blog post” vs. “blog put” rationale since, according to the spec, a blog post could be created with either a POST or a PUT request.

By: Sudheer

Sudheer — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:34:09 +0000

Perfect. I don’t see why people confuse PUT and POST. The HTTP specification, you quote in the blog post, is so clear about it.

It’s a blog post, not a blog put, isn’t it?