Is it possible to cache POST methods in HTTP?

Solution 1:

The corresponding RFC 2616 in section 9.5 (POST) allows the caching of the response to a POST message, if you use the appropriate headers.

Responses to this method are not cacheable, unless the response includes appropriate Cache-Control or Expires header fields. However, the 303 (See Other) response can be used to direct the user agent to retrieve a cacheable resource.

Note that the same RFC states explicitly in section 13 (Caching in HTTP) that a cache must invalidate the corresponding entity after a POST request.

Some HTTP methods MUST cause a cache to invalidate an entity. This is either the entity referred to by the Request-URI, or by the Location or Content-Location headers (if present). These methods are:

  - PUT
  - DELETE
  - POST

It's not clear to me how these specifications can allow meaningful caching.

This is also reflected and further clarified in RFC 7231 (Section 4.3.3.), which obsoletes RFC 2616.

Responses to POST requests are only cacheable when they include
explicit freshness information (see Section 4.2.1 of [RFC7234]).
However, POST caching is not widely implemented. For cases where an origin server wishes the client to be able to cache the result of a POST in a way that can be reused by a later GET, the origin server MAY send a 200 (OK) response containing the result and a Content-Location header field that has the same value as the POST's effective request URI (Section 3.1.4.2).

According to this, the result of a cached POST (if this ability is indicated by the server) can be subsequently used for as the result of a GET request for the same URI.

Solution 2:

According to RFC 2616 Section 9.5:

"Responses to POST method are not cacheable, UNLESS the response includes appropriate Cache-Control or Expires header fields."

So, YES, you can cache POST request response but only if it arrives with appropriate headers. In most cases you don't want to cache the response. But in some cases - such as if you are not saving any data on the server - it's entirely appropriate.

Note, however many browsers, including current Firefox 3.0.10, will not cache POST response regardless of the headers. IE behaves more smartly in this respect.

Now, i want to clear up some confusion here regarding RFC 2616 S. 13.10. POST method on a URI doesn't "invalidate the resource for caching" as some have stated here. It makes a previously cached version of that URI stale, even if its cache control headers indicated freshness of longer duration.