When do you use POST and when do you use GET?

Use POST for destructive actions such as creation (I'm aware of the irony), editing, and deletion, because you can't hit a POST action in the address bar of your browser. Use GET when it's safe to allow a person to call an action. So a URL like:

http://myblog.org/admin/posts/delete/357

Should bring you to a confirmation page, rather than simply deleting the item. It's far easier to avoid accidents this way.

POST is also more secure than GET, because you aren't sticking information into a URL. And so using GET as the method for an HTML form that collects a password or other sensitive information is not the best idea.

One final note: POST can transmit a larger amount of information than GET. 'POST' has no size restrictions for transmitted data, whilst 'GET' is limited to 2048 characters.

In brief

• Use GET for safe andidempotent requests
• Use POST for neither safe nor idempotent requests

In details There is a proper place for each. Even if you don't follow RESTful principles, a lot can be gained from learning about REST and how a resource oriented approach works.

A RESTful application will use GETs for operations which are both safe and idempotent.

A safe operation is an operation which does not change the data requested.

An idempotent operation is one in which the result will be the same no matter how many times you request it.

It stands to reason that, as GETs are used for safe operations they are automatically also idempotent. Typically a GET is used for retrieving a resource (a question and its associated answers on stack overflow for example) or collection of resources.

A RESTful app will use PUTs for operations which are not safe but idempotent.

I know the question was about GET and POST, but I'll return to POST in a second.

Typically a PUT is used for editing a resource (editing a question or an answer on stack overflow for example).

A POST would be used for any operation which is neither safe or idempotent.

Typically a POST would be used to create a new resource for example creating a NEW SO question (though in some designs a PUT would be used for this also).

If you run the POST twice you would end up creating TWO new questions.

There's also a DELETE operation, but I'm guessing I can leave that there :)

Discussion

In practical terms modern web browsers typically only support GET and POST reliably (you can perform all of these operations via javascript calls, but in terms of entering data in forms and pressing submit you've generally got the two options). In a RESTful application the POST will often be overriden to provide the PUT and DELETE calls also.

But, even if you are not following RESTful principles, it can be useful to think in terms of using GET for retrieving / viewing information and POST for creating / editing information.

You should never use GET for an operation which alters data. If a search engine crawls a link to your evil op, or the client bookmarks it could spell big trouble.

Use GET if you don't mind the request being repeated (That is it doesn't change state).

Use POST if the operation does change the system's state.

Short Version

GET: Usually used for submitted search requests, or any request where you want the user to be able to pull up the exact page again.

Advantages of GET:

• URLs can be bookmarked safely.
• Pages can be reloaded safely.

Disadvantages of GET:

• Variables are passed through url as name-value pairs. (Security risk)
• Limited number of variables that can be passed. (Based upon browser. For example, Internet Explorer is limited to 2,048 characters.)

POST: Used for higher security requests where data may be used to alter a database, or a page that you don't want someone to bookmark.

Advantages of POST:

• Name-value pairs are not displayed in url. (Security += 1)
• Unlimited number of name-value pairs can be passed via POST. Reference.

Disadvantages of POST:

• Page that used POST data cannot be bookmark. (If you so desired.)

Longer Version

Directly from the Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1:

9.3 GET

The GET method means retrieve whatever information (in the form of an entity) is identified by the Request-URI. If the Request-URI refers to a data-producing process, it is the produced data which shall be returned as the entity in the response and not the source text of the process, unless that text happens to be the output of the process.

The semantics of the GET method change to a "conditional GET" if the request message includes an If-Modified-Since, If-Unmodified-Since, If-Match, If-None-Match, or If-Range header field. A conditional GET method requests that the entity be transferred only under the circumstances described by the conditional header field(s). The conditional GET method is intended to reduce unnecessary network usage by allowing cached entities to be refreshed without requiring multiple requests or transferring data already held by the client.

The semantics of the GET method change to a "partial GET" if the request message includes a Range header field. A partial GET requests that only part of the entity be transferred, as described in section 14.35. The partial GET method is intended to reduce unnecessary network usage by allowing partially-retrieved entities to be completed without transferring data already held by the client.

The response to a GET request is cacheable if and only if it meets the requirements for HTTP caching described in section 13.

See section 15.1.3 for security considerations when used for forms.

9.5 POST

The POST method is used to request that the origin server accept the entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the resource identified by the Request-URI in the Request-Line. 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.

The actual function performed by the POST method is determined by the server and is usually dependent on the Request-URI. The posted entity is subordinate to that URI in the same way that a file is subordinate to a directory containing it, a news article is subordinate to a newsgroup to which it is posted, or a record is subordinate to a database.

The action performed by the POST method might not result in a resource that can be identified by a URI. In this case, either 200 (OK) or 204 (No Content) is the appropriate response status, depending on whether or not the response includes an entity that describes the result.