Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol
with the lightness and speed necessary for distributed, collaborative,
hypermedia information systems. It is a generic, stateless, object-oriented
protocol which can be used for many tasks, such as name servers and distributed
object management systems, through extension of its request methods (commands).
A feature of HTTP is the typing and negotiation of data representation,
allowing systems to be built independently of the data being transferred.
HTTP Properties
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A comprehensive addressing scheme
The HTTP protocol uses the concept of reference provided by the Universal
Resource Identifier (URI) as a location (URL) or name (URN), for indicating
the resource on which a method is to be applied.
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Client-Server Architecture
The HTTP protocol is based on a request/response paradigm. The communication
generally takes place over a TCP/IP connection on the Internet.
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The HTTP protocol is connectionless and stateless
After the server has responded to the client's request, the connection
between client and server is dropped and forgotten. There is no "memory"
between client connections. The pure HTTP server implementation treats
every request as if it was brand-new, i.e. without context.