HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

The Hyper Text Transfer Protocolis the foundation and primary means for requesting and receiving hypermedia (web-based) resourcesfor example HTMLimagestext and media filesand is part of the internet protocol suite.

The original HTTP specifications were written in the early 1990s and evolved to newer versions of HTTPnotably HTTP/2 and HTTP/3which are designed to be faster by reusing already open connections to request and retrieve multiple resources.

Following a client-server modelHTTP sessions are established using a TCP or UDP connectionwhere the client will initiate the connection and the serveroptionally through intermediarieswill acknowledge and use the same connection for transmitting and receiving data (HTTP messages). The two types of HTTP messages are requests and responses.

To communicate efficiently between the clientserver and intermediaries HTTP utilizesamong others:

HTTP Headers

HTTP headers are a means for a clientserverand any intermediaries to exchange information during the HTTP request-response process.

HTTP Methods

HTTP methods are intended to cover all possible types of interaction with server-side resources.

HTTP Status Codes

HTTP status codes are used to indicate successfailureand other properties about the result of an HTTP request.

Uniform Resource Identifier

A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a sequence of characters that uniquely identifies a resource by locationnameor both.