HttpMethod

HTTP defines methods (sometimes referred to as verbs) to indicate the desired action to be performed on the identified resource. What this resource represents, whether pre-existing data or data that is generated dynamically, depends on the implementation of the server.

Often, the resource corresponds to a file or the output of an executable residing on the server. The HTTP/1.0 specification defined the GET, POST and HEAD methods and the HTTP/1.1 specification added 5 new methods: OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE, TRACE and CONNECT.

By being specified in these documents their semantics are well known and can be depended upon. Any client can use any method and the server can be configured to support any combination of methods. If a method is unknown to an intermediate it will be treated as an unsafe and non-idempotent method. There is no limit to the number of methods that can be defined and this allows for future methods to be specified without breaking existing infrastructure.