3. About REST – The Basics

A short introduction to important HTTP Methods

To explore and test the evalink talos API, it is essential to have a basic understanding of the different HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) methods, or so-called verbs, an API supports.

HTTP is the protocol that is used by browsers and servers to communicate. It defines a set of request methods to indicate the desired action.

There are 7 basic HTTP Methods:

1. GET

2. POST

3. PUT

4. HEAD

5. DELETE

6. PATCH

7. OPTIONS

GET is by far the most important method. It is used to request and retrieve data, a document or another source from a server. A source is identified by the request URL.

POST follows the opposite approach: it primarily transmits data (in form of an URL) to a web server. Requests are used to send data to the API server to create or update resources. The data sent to the server is stored in the request body of the HTTP request.

PUT requests allow modification of existing sources or creation of new data on the server, they are used to send data to the API to update or create a resource. Unlike the POST method, the URL in the PUT request identifies the data itself sent with the request, not the source.

PATCH requests are used to only apply partial modifications to the resource.

DELETE requests are used to delete the resource at the specified URL.

HEAD is almost identical to GET, except without the response body. Unlike GET, however, the server does not transmit the actual data. In other words, if GET /alarms delivers a list of alarms, then HEAD /alarms will make the same request, but won't get back the list of alarms.

You can find more information about the basic HTTP Methods in the following link.