Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a communication protocol widely used on the internet to enable the exchange of information between systems and to facilitate the retrieval of hypertext or hypermedia resources. HTTP is an application layer protocol that operates on top of the underlying transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) suite. It is the foundation of data communication in the World Wide Web (WWW).
HTTP is designed as a client-server protocol, where a client sends a request to a server, and the server responds with the requested resource or a specific status code indicating any errors or redirection. The request-response model of HTTP allows clients, such as web browsers, to request web pages, images, videos, or other resources from web servers.
HTTP is a stateless protocol, meaning it does not keep track of the user's previous interactions or store any information about them. Each request from the client is treated independently without any knowledge of earlier requests, unless additional mechanisms are employed to maintain session state, such as cookies or session tokens.
HTTP utilizes a variety of methods or verbs to define the specific action to be performed, such as GET to retrieve a resource, POST to submit data, PUT to update a resource, DELETE to remove a resource, and more. These methods, along with the various status codes and headers, provide flexibility and enable the efficient transfer of information between clients and servers.
