{"id":284,"date":"2014-02-27T14:40:10","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T14:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/?p=284"},"modified":"2023-06-19T09:19:30","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T09:19:30","slug":"what-is-http-post-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/what-is-http-post-request","title":{"rendered":"What is HTTP POST Request?"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\"><\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes read<\/span><\/span><p class=\"lead\"><!-- pn-tldr --><\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>POST submits data and is expected to change state, unlike GET.<\/li>\n<li>It is neither cacheable nor idempotent, so repeats can duplicate work.<\/li>\n<li>The body carries the payload, which is why it suits sensitive or large data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- \/pn-tldr --><strong>HTTP POST<\/strong> request is used for sending data to a server. You can use POST requests for upload a file or submitting a web form, make sure that the receiving application agrees on the format.<br \/>\nAdditional headers are sent with the POST request: <strong>Content-Type<\/strong>: header which is usually <strong>application\/x-www-form-urlencoded<\/strong> and the <strong>Content-Length<\/strong>: header gives the length of the URL-encoded form data. These additional headers are used to describe the message body.<\/p>\n<p>The POST body is the block of data sent with the request and the request URI is not a resource to retrieve; it&#8217;s usually an application to handle the data you&#8217;re sending.<br \/>\nThe HTTP response is normally application response to your file upload request or form submission, not a static file.<\/p>\n<p>You can check related posts, what is <a title=\"What is HTTP\" href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/what-is-http\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">HTTP<\/a>, and what is <a title=\"GET request\" href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/what-is-a-http-get-request\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">HTTP GET request<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Use <strong><a title=\"load testing in the cloud\" href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\">LoadFocus<\/a><\/strong> for load testing your application with thousands of concurrent connections. You can create GET, POST, PUT and DELETE requests to you website. API endpoints or web application.<!-- pn-faq --><\/p>\n<h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n<h3>What is POST for?<\/h3>\n<p>Sending data to a server, such as a form submission or a file upload. Unlike GET it is expected to change state.<\/p>\n<h3>Can a POST be safely retried?<\/h3>\n<p>No. It is neither cacheable nor idempotent, so a repeat can duplicate the work: two orders, two records, two charges. That is why retry logic around POST needs care.<\/p>\n<h3>Why send data in the body?<\/h3>\n<p>Because it is not part of the URL. That keeps large payloads workable and keeps sensitive values out of browser history, logs and referrer headers.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/pn-faq --><!-- pn-related-reading --><\/p>\n<h2>Related reading<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/apache-jmeter-performance-test-introduction\">Introduction to Apache JMeter Performance Testing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/how-to-use-apache-jmeter-to-load-test-a-web-server\">How To Use Apache JMeter To Load Test a Web Server<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/online-api-tester-complete-guide-to-testing-apis\">Online API Tester: Complete Guide to Testing APIs in 2026<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\"><\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes read<\/span><\/span>Key takeaways POST submits data and is expected to change state, unlike GET. It is neither cacheable nor idempotent, so repeats can duplicate work. The body carries the payload, which is why it suits sensitive or large data. HTTP POST request is used for sending data to a server. You can use POST requests for&#8230;  <a href=\"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/what-is-http-post-request\" class=\"more-link\" title=\"Read What is HTTP POST Request?\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apache-jmeter","category-cloud-testing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2611,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions\/2611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loadfocus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}