Get vs Post

[darrylmg]

Post can sort of hide the data from the url, which is cleaner in my eyes.
If you need to use SSL then the url is not encrypted, but the data in a post is.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Ive just been completely stumped by a question a permie has asked me (please bear with me - I'm primarily a SQL dev).

I have a page that redirects to another page passing a postcode on the query string. Pretty standard stuff but he asked me why I'm doing a get instead of a post. And I couldn't really answer him.

Is the postcode in the query string used to retrieve a resource? E.g. load up a list of addresses at that postcode? If so then a GET sounds about right to me.

The implied semantics of the http protocol (not that i'm saying you should necessarily following them) are GETs for retrieving resources, POSTs & PUTs for modifying/adding resources, DELETEs for deleting (if your web server does DELETEs) etc.

There might be perfectly good reasons to use a POST, but without knowing them it seems more 'proper' to use a GET (assuming my original assumption/guess was correct).

[Gittins Gal]

Is the postcode in the query string used to retrieve a resource? E.g. load up a list of addresses at that postcode? If so then a GET sounds about right to me.

The implied semantics of the http protocol (not that i'm saying you should necessarily following them) are GETs for retrieving resources, POSTs & PUTs for modifying/adding resources, DELETEs for deleting (if your web server does DELETEs) etc.

There might be perfectly good reasons to use a POST, but without knowing them it seems more 'proper' to use a GET (assuming my original assumption/guess was correct).

Yes, your assumptions are correct. Thank you SO