Messages
The formats of the request meassage and response messages contain Headers and body with some other information. Request messages consist of Request line, Headers, A blank line and Body. Response messages consist of Status line, Headers, A blank line and Body.
Request line has following format;
| Request type | space | URL | space | HTTP version |
Status Line ha following format:
| HTTP version | space | Status code | space | Status phrase |
Request type: methods like GET, POST etc.
URL: destination address to which request to be sent.
HTTP Version: version name of HTTP line 1.1.
Status code: code of three digits in the response message like 200, 404.(see table of status code from return from server )
Status phrase: shows more information of status code like 200 means OK, 404 means resources not found.
Headers : it is used to exchange more information between client and server like Date, Connection, MIME type, Accept etc.
There four types of headers
- General header :
| header | Description |
| Cache-control | Specifies information about caching |
| Connection | Shows whether connection should be open or closed |
| Date | Shows current date |
| Upgrade | Specifies the preferred communication protocol. |
| Mime-version | Shows the mime version used |
- Request header
| Header | Description |
| Accept | Media format client can accept |
| Accept-charset | Shows whether connection should be open or closed |
| Accept-encoding | Shows current date |
| Accept-language | Specifies the preferred communication protocol. |
| Form | The e-mail address of the user |
| Host | Show the host and port number of the client |
| If-modified-since | Send the document if newer than specified date |
| If-match | Send the document if it matches given tag |
| If-non-match | Send the document if it does not match given tag |
| If-range | Send only the portion of the document that is missing |
| If-unmodified-since | Send the document if not changed since specified date |
| Referrer | Specifies the URL of the linked document |
| User-agent | Identifies the client program |
- Response Header
| header | Description |
| Accept-range | Shows if server accepts the range requested by client |
| Age | Shows the age of document |
| Public | Shows the supported list of methods |
| Retry-after | Specifies the date after which server is available. |
| Server | Shows server name and version |
- Entity header: information about body of document. It used in response messages, requests like POST,PUT methods, that contains body.
| header | Description |
| Allow | List valid methods that can be used within URL |
| Content-encoding | |
| Content-type | Shows media type |
| Content-language | |
| Content-length | |
| Content-range | |
| Etag | Gives an entity tag |
| Expires | Gives the date and time when contents may change |
| Last-modified | Date and time of last change |
| Location | Location of create and removal document. |
| | |
Comments