GET and POST Methods

There are two ways the browser client can send information to the web server:

• The GET Method
• The POST Method

Before the browser sends the information, it encodes it using a scheme called URL encoding. In this scheme, name/value pairs are joined with equal signs and different pairs are separated by the ampersand.

name1=value1&name2=value2&name3=value3

Spaces are removed and replaced with the + character and any other nonalphanumeric characters are replaced with a hexadecimal values. After the information is encoded it is sent to the server.

The GET Method

The GET method sends the encoded user information appended to the page request. The page and the encoded information are separated by the ? character.

http://www.test.com/index.htm?name1=value1&name2=value2

• The GET method produces a long string that appears in your server logs, in the browser’s Location: box.
• The GET method is restricted to send upto 1024 characters only.
• Never use GET method if you have password or other sensitive information to be sent to the server.
• GET can’t be used to send binary data, like images or word documents, to the server.
• The data sent by GET method can be accessed using QUERY_STRING environment variable.
• In get method the data we send get appended to the URL so whatever you will send will be seen by other user so can say that it is not even secure.
• Its main job is to ask the server for the resource. If the resource is  available then then it will given back to the user on your browser
• The PHP provides $_GET associative array to access all the sent information using GET method.

The POST Method

The POST method transfers information via HTTP headers. The information is encoded as described in case of GET method and put into a header called QUERY_STRING.

• The POST method does not have any restriction on data size to be sent.
• The POST method can be used to send ASCII as well as binary data.
• The data sent by POST method goes through HTTP header so security depends on HTTP protocol. By using Secure HTTP you can make sure that your information is secure.
• The PHP provides $_POST associative array to access all the sent information using GET method.
• Using Post we can request as well as send some data to the server.
•  We use post method when we have to send a big chunk of data to the server, like when we have to send a long enquiry form then we can send it by using the post method.