POST

The HTTP POST method sends data to the server. The type of the body of the request is indicated by the Content-Type header.

The difference between PUT and POST is that PUT is idempotent: calling it once or several times successively has the same effect (that is no side effect), where successive identical POST may have additional effects, like passing an order several times.

A POST request is typically sent via an HTML form and results in a change on the server. In this case, the content type is selected by putting the adequate string in the enctype attribute of the <form> element or the formenctype attribute of the <input> or <button> elements:

• application/x-www-form-urlencoded: the values are encoded in key-value tuples separated by '&', with a '=' between the key and the value. Non-alphanumeric characters are percent encoded: this is the reason why this type is not suitable to use with binary data (use multipart/form-data instead)
• multipart/form-data
• text/plain

When the POST request is sent via a method other than an HTML form — like via an XMLHttpRequest — the body can take any type. As described in the HTTP 1.1 specification, POST is designed to allow a uniform method to cover the following functions:

• Annotation of existing resources
• Posting a message to a bulletin board, newsgroup, mailing list, or similar group of articles;
• Providing a block of data, such as the result of submitting a form, to a data-handling process;
• Extending a database through an append operation.

Syntax

POST /index.html

Example

A simple form using the default application/x-www-form-urlencoded content type:

POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: foo.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 13
say=Hi&to=Mom

A form using the multipart/form-data content type:

POST /test.html HTTP/1.1 
Host: example.org 
Content-Type: multipart/form-data;boundary="boundary" 
--boundary 
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="field1" 
value1 
--boundary 
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="field2"; filename="example.txt" 
value2

Specifications

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

See also

• Content-Type
• Content-Disposition