Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) : HTTP is an application-level protocol for distribution,collorative,hypermedia information system
- This is the foundation for data communication for the world wide web (i,e internet) since b1990
- HTTP is generic and stateless protocol which can be used for other purposes as well using extensive of its request methods , error codes and headers
- HTTP is a TCP\IP based communication protocol that is used to deliver data(HTML files,ima im files, query result etc) on the world wide web
- HTTP Specification specifies how clients request data will be construed and sent to the server and how the server responds to the requests
Basic features of HTTP
There are three basic features that make HTTP a simple but powerful protocol
- HTTP is connection : The HTTP clien i,e a browser initiates an HTTP request and after a request is made,the client waits for the response
- HTTP is media independent :It means,any type of data can be sent by HTTP as long as both the client and the server known how to handle the data content.It is required for the client as well as thw service to specify the content type using appropriate MIME - type
- HTTP is stateless : As mentioned above, HTTP iis connectionless and it is a direct results of HTTP being a stateless protocal
- The server band client are aware of each other only during a current request
- Afterwards both of them forget about each other.Due to this nature of the protocol,neither the client nor the browser can retain information between different request across the web page
