Will the Guru

As web server usually uses HTTP to communicate with the client(e.g. web browser), it is commonly called as HTTP server.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

• HTTP uses TCP connection which is reliable
• HTTP transaction always starts when client creates connection first and sends requests
  • Server doesn’t create connection by itself
• Server and client can destroy the connection before the transaction is finished
• The request and response are all represented with text. That’s why it’s named as hypertext protocol.

HTTP Request

• HTTP Request is composed of 3 elements
  1. Method – URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) – Protocol/Version
     • HTTP request supports methods like GET, POST, HEAD, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE, TRACE. GET and POST are the most commonly used methods.
     • URI specifies the resource. URI is usually a relative path from the top directory of the server. It always starts with “/”
  2. Request headers
     • Request headers include information about client.
       • For example, the language configuration of the browser
  3. Entity body
     • An empty line between the headers and body distinguishes those two parts.

HTTP Response

• HTTP Request is composed of 3 elements
  1. Protocol – Status Code – Description
  2. Response headers
  3. Entity body