Elaborating on GET and POST

GET

- Causes the fill-out form contents to be appended to the URL

• This is the default method
• Implies the form is only requesting information (for example, a file, an image, or a database query)
• Form contents are passed as part of the URL, as a QUERY STRING, in the form:
  actionurl?name=value&name=value&name=value
• Form contents are appended to the url (after the question mark) in name/value pairs
• This limits the quantity of form data which can be passed

POST

- Causes the fill-out form contents to be sent to the server in the body of the message rather than as part of the URL.

• Implies the form processing may update information on the server (adding or changing information in a database, placing an order, etc.)
• Contents of the form are encoded exactly as with the GET method (above), but the form contents are passed to the script as an input file
• As a result, much more form data can be passed, since you can't run into the limit on the length of a URL or the length of a command line or command line argument on the server
• This is the recommended usage, although you must be sure your HTTP server supports the POST method.
• NOTE: Some browsers, notably older versions of the America OnLine browser and Spry AIR Mosaic, mis-handle POST forms! This is an error in the browser, not the HTML, the form, or the form processing program.