1.1. HTTP Protocol¶

Request vs Response
URI vs URL vs URN
HTTP vs HTTPS
HTTP/1.1 vs HTTP/2.0 vs HTTP/3
Methods
Statuses
Headers

1.1.1. URI vs URL vs URN¶

URIs identify
URLs locate;
Locators are also identifiers, so every URL is also a URI [RegexPat19]
There are URIs which are not URLs [RegexPat19]

Examples

Roger Pate

This is my name, which is an identifier. It is like a URI, but cannot be a URL, as it tells you nothing about my location or how to contact me. In this case it also happens to identify at least 5 other people in the USA alone.

4914 West Bay Street, Nassau, Bahamas

This is a locator, which is an identifier for that physical location. It is like both a URL and URI (since all URLs are URIs), and also identifies me indirectly as "resident of..". In this case it uniquely identifies me, but that would change if I get a roommate.

I say "like" because these examples do not follow the required syntax.

1.1.2. HTTP Methods¶

Table 1.6. HTTP Methods¶
Method	Function	Description
GET	Read	Requests using GET should only retrieve data and should have no other effect.
POST	Create	The POST method requests that the server accept the entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the web resource identified by the URI.
PUT	Update/Replace	The PUT method requests that the enclosed entity be stored under the supplied URI.
PATCH	Partial Update/Modify	The PATCH method applies partial modifications to a resource.
DELETE	Delete	The DELETE method deletes the specified resource.
HEAD	Show Headers	The HEAD method asks for a response identical to that of a GET request, but without the response body.
CONNECT	Connect	The CONNECT method converts the request connection to a transparent TCP/IP tunnel, usually to facilitate SSL-encrypted communication (HTTPS) through an unencrypted HTTP proxy.
OPTIONS	Show HTTP Methods	The OPTIONS method returns the HTTP methods that the server supports for the specified URL.
TRACE	Show Trace	The TRACE method echoes the received request so that a client can see what (if any) changes or additions have been made by intermediate servers.

1.1.3. HTTP Statuses¶

Table 1.7. HTTP Status Families¶
Code	Description
1XX	Informational
2XX	Successful
3XX	Redirection
4XX	Client Error
5XX	Server Error

1.1.3.1. `1xx` Informational response¶

Table 1.8. HTTP Statuses `1xx` Informational response¶
Code	Status	Description
100	Continue
101	Switching Protocols
102	Processing (WebDAV)
103	Early Hints

1.1.3.2. `2xx` Success¶

Table 1.9. HTTP Statuses `2xx` Success¶
Code	Status	Description
200	OK
201	Created
202	Accepted
203	Non-Authoritative Information
204	No Content
205	Reset Content
206	Partial Content
207	Multi-Status (WebDAV)
208	Already Reported (WebDAV)
209	IM Used

1.1.3.3. `3xx` Redirection¶

Table 1.10. HTTP Statuses `3xx` Redirection¶
Code	Status	Description
300	Multiple Choices
301	Moved Permanently
302	Found (Previously 'Moved temporarily')
303	See Other
304	Not Modified
305	Use Proxy
306	Switch Proxy
307	Temporary Redirect
308	Permanent Redirect

1.1.3.4. `4xx` Client errors¶

Table 1.11. HTTP Statuses `4xx` Client errors¶
Code	Status	Description
400	Bad Request
401	Unauthorized
402	Payment Required
403	Forbidden
404	Not Found
405	Method Not Allowed
406	Not Acceptable
407	Proxy Authentication Required
408	Request Timeout
409	Conflict
410	Gone
411	Length Required
412	Precondition Failed
413	Payload Too Large
414	URI Too Long
415	Unsupported Media Type
416	Range Not Satisfiable
417	Expectation Failed
418	I'm a teapot	This code was defined in 1998 as one of the traditional IETF April Fools' jokes, in RFC 2324
421	Misdirected Request
422	Unprocessable Entity (WebDAV)
423	Locked (WebDAV)
424	Failed Dependency (WebDAV)
426	Upgrade Required
428	Precondition Required
429	Too Many Requests
431	Request Header Fields Too Large
451	Unavailable For Legal Reasons

1.1.3.5. `5xx` Server errors¶

Table 1.12. HTTP Statuses `5xx` Server errors¶
Code	Status	Description
500	Internal Server Error
501	Not Implemented
502	Bad Gateway
503	Service Unavailable
504	Gateway Timeout
505	HTTP Version Not Supported
506	Variant Also Negotiates
507	Insufficient Storage (WebDAV)
508	Loop Detected (WebDAV)
510	Not Extended
511	Network Authentication Required

1.1.4. HTTP Headers¶

1.1.4.1. HTTP Request Headers¶

Table 1.13. HTTP Request Headers¶
Header	Description
Accept
Accept-Charset
Accept-Encoding
Accept-Language
Authorization
Cache-Control
Content-Length
Content-Type
Cookie
Date
Host
Origin
Pragma
Referer
User-Agent
DNT
X-Forwarded-For
X-Csrf-Token

1.1.4.2. HTTP Response Headers¶

Table 1.14. HTTP Response Headers¶
Header	Description
Access-Control-Allow-Origin
Access-Control-Allow-Methods
Allow
Cache-Control
Content-Disposition
Content-Encoding
Content-Language
Content-Length
Content-Type
Date
ETag
Expires
Last-Modified
Location
Pragma
Server
Set-Cookie
WWW-Authenticate
X-Frame-Options
Refresh
Status

1.1.5. MIME types¶

1.1.5.1. General structure¶

type/subtype

Table 1.15. Types¶
MIME type	Description
text	Represents any document that contains text and is theoretically human readable
image	Represents any kind of images. Videos are not included, though animated images (like animated gif) are described with an image type
audio	Represents any kind of audio files
video	Represents any kind of video files
application	Represents any kind of binary data

1.1.5.2. Text Types¶

Table 1.16. Text Types¶
MIME type	Description
text/plain
text/html
text/css

1.1.5.3. Application Types¶

Table 1.17. Application Types¶
MIME type	Description
application/json
application/javascript
application/ecmascript
application/octet-stream	As it really means unknown binary
application/pkcs12
application/vnd.mspowerpoint
application/xhtml+xml
application/xml
application/pdf
application/ogg	An audio or video file using the OGG container format. Theora is the usual video codec used within it; Vorbis is the usual audio codec
application/*

1.1.5.4. Multipart Types¶

Table 1.18. Multipart Types¶
MIME type	Description
multipart/form-data
multipart/byteranges

1.1.5.5. Image Types¶

Table 1.19. Image types¶
MIME type	Description
image/gif	GIF images (lossless compression, superseded by PNG)
image/jpeg	JPEG images
image/png	PNG images
image/svg+xml	SVG images (vector images)
image/x-icon	Windows icons
image/bmp
image/webp
image/vnd.microsoft.icon

1.1.5.6. Audio Types¶

Table 1.20. Audio Types¶
MIME type	Description
audio/wave
audio/wav
audio/x-wav
audio/x-pn-wav	An audio file in the WAVE container format. The PCM audio codec (WAVE codec '1') is often supported, but other codecs have more limited support (if any)
audio/webm	An audio file in the WebM container format. Vorbis and Opus are the most common audio codecs
audio/ogg	An audio file in the OGG container format. Vorbis is the most common audio codec used in such a container
audio/midi
audio/mpeg
audio/*

1.1.5.7. Video Types¶

Table 1.21. Video Types¶
MIME type	Description
video/mp4
video/webm
video/ogg
video/webm	A video file, possibly with audio, in the WebM container format. VP8 and VP9 are the most common video codecs used within it; Vorbis and Opus the most common audio codecs
video/ogg	A video file, possibly with audio, in the OGG container format. Theora is the usual video codec used within it; Vorbis is the usual audio codec

1.1.6. API Versioning¶

1.1.6.1. Good Engineering Practices¶

Always version API
Have stable API!
Do not use plural in resources
Use HTTP Statuses
Use HTTP Methods

1.1.6.2. How to version API?¶

Semantic versioning
Django versioning
API deprecation policy

Table 1.22. How to version API?¶
Example	Description
`/api/v2/user/10`	API version as a part of URL
`X-API-VERSION: 2`	Version as a custom header with `X-...` prefix
`/user/10?api=v2`	Version as a parameter to URL
`Accept: application/vnd.api.v2`	API version as a custom vendor prefix for `Accept` header
`Accept: application/vnd.api.v2;q=0.9,application/vnd.api.v1;q=0.8`	API version negotiation with weights using `Accept` header
api-v2.example.com	Subdomain