Why is request method send to web server called GET and POST?

Question

I guessed that the name of each of the request method has a relationship with the operations they performed in some manner. But I can't get it!

Detials: GET means posted argument are showed in the url and POST means they are sent but not shown in the url. But what is that related to POST/GET? What is gotten/posted or what does the posting/getting job? Do you have any glues?

I understand what GET and POST method is. What I wanna know is why do we GET/POST, why don't we call it TYPE1/TYPE2, or another more make-sense name like ON-URL/OFF-URL

Please discuss if you know that.

Answer 1

This should help you:

Methods GET and POST in HTML forms - what's the difference? http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/methods.html

The Definitive Guide to GET vs POST
http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/the-definitive-guide-to-get-vs-post/

get and post
http://catcode.com/formguide/getpost.html

Answer 2

Take a look at the RFC definitions here:

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec9.html

But essentially, GET is used to retrieve a resource and POST is used to create a new one or make a change to a resource.

Answer 3

From RFC 2616:

GET

The GET method means retrieve whatever information (in the form of an entity) is identified by the Request-URI.

POST

The POST method is used to request that the origin server accept the entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the resource identified by the Request-URI in the Request-Line.

So, GET should be used to read a resource, whereas POST should be used to create, update, or delete a resource.

Answer 4

GET and POST are called HTTP Verbs. See the RFC for details.

GET will get a resource identified by a URL. If using GET as the action for a form the entries will be encoded in the URL (look at a google search for an example).

POST will send the data separately, to the specified URL.

The biggest difference is that if you use GET on a form submit, you can copy the URL of the page you landed at and use it directly to get the same results. All information will also be visible in the URL (don't use this method for passwords). If you POST the data the URL of the landing page will not be enough to reproduce the same results; you will have to go through the form again.