HTTP Request/Response Basics

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The following introductory topics will be discussed in this article:

• The life-cycle of an HTTP request & response.
• Anatomy of an HTTP request & response.
• HTTP Methods & best practices.

The life-cycle of an HTTP request commonly looks like this:

1. A user visits the URL of a website.
2. This creates a request which is routed to a web server via the internet (a network of DNS’s, routers and switches) over HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol).
3. The web server receives the HTTP request and responds to the user with the web page (or content) which was requested.

Every time you click on a link and visit a web page, behind the scenes you are making a request, and in turn receiving a response from a web server. Note that HTTP requests can be made via many channels, not just web browsers. For example, an HTTP request could be made using TELNET, or a client written in JAVA or C# etc.
To see an example of what an HTTP request and response looks like do the following:

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