What if I don't use GET (and DELETE)?

#discuss #restapi #webdev

It's not only about whether can I have body or not, but also about schema validation.

Querystring-based schema makes it harder to validate, unless you use an URL-safe serialization. (And it still makes it hard with Swagger / OpenAPI)

So, if I choose to POST, what benefits will I lose, and does it even matter? (perhaps, for scaling up)

I see two major scenarios here.

Caching helps
Caching is troublesome

Top comments (11)

bravemaster619 • Dec 24 '20 • Edited

POST is bad for user experience. For example:

Browser will show a resubmit confirmation alert when you refresh your page.
You cannot bookmark a POST request.
Google does not show POST responses on SERP, right?

Pacharapol Withayasakpunt • Dec 24 '20 • Edited

Why would you bookmark an API request?
Do API requests need to be on SERP? I would disable it with robots.txt.

bravemaster619 • Dec 24 '20

When you want to show a specific page for ajax table. If ajax table is POST based, it will be a headache.

Pacharapol Withayasakpunt • Dec 24 '20

I don't really get it, but thanks for trying to explain.

Anyway, the real URL being displayed on the browser URL tab doesn't really have to correlate with the API request METHOD, does it?

Alain Van Hout • Dec 24 '20

One big thing you'll be losing is en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_.... Ignoring that principle is the cause of much more problems in software development than is generally appreciated.

mafflerbach • Dec 24 '20

GET requests are cachable from the server. It helps to reduce the load on the server side. GET should be also only for a read action and not for manipulating data or states.

Pacharapol Withayasakpunt • Dec 24 '20 • Edited

From what I have found,

Browser-side GET responses can be cached; but usually not other methods. However, GraphQL client (which uses POST) may cache the requests internally.
Server-side requests depend on the implementation.
- For Golang Gin that I am trying to use, maybe I cannot cache requests that aren't part of the URL. i.e. path, querystring (and is not limited to GET).

Also, regarding caching, what should I use for reading dynamic data? (that should not be cached, anyway)

mafflerbach • Dec 24 '20

Stil GET. Becaus it is documented in the rfc7231 to use GET for non manipulating request. The URL may is dynamic, but the response should be still the same if no other manipulating requests happen in between. And GET can also cashed on the server side or on a reverse proxy.

And in general a request body cannot cached.

Pacharapol Withayasakpunt • Dec 24 '20

but the response should be still the same if no other manipulating requests happen in between.

How would the caching engine know?

mafflerbach • Dec 24 '20

Well nothing is more complicated that cach invalidation...

But in short. You have multible 'cache header' posiblities from the client side. How vanish and other reverse proxies works - no detailed knowlage. But this seems a good explanation developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/W...