The primary or most-commonly-used HTTP verbs (or methods, as they are properly called) are POST, GET, PUT, and DELETE. These correspond to create, read, update, and delete (or CRUD) operations, respectively. There are a number of other verbs, too, but are utilized less frequently.
Below is a table summarizing the methods used by this service API.
HTTP VERB
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CRUD
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DESCRIPTION
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POST
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CREATE
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Used to create new resources
NOT SAFE - NOT IDEMPOTENT
Making two identical POST will duplicate the resource
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GET
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READ
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Retrieve a representation of a resource
SAFE - IDEMPOTENT
Multiple identical requests return the same result
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PUT
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UPDATE
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Update or Create a resource
NOT SAFE - IDEMPOTENT
Multiple identical requests will update the same resource
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DELETE
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DELETE
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Used to delete a resource
NOT SAFE - IDEMPOTENT §
Multiple identical requests will delete same resource
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§
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Calling DELETE on a resource a second time will often return a 404 (NOT FOUND) since it was already removed and therefore is no longer findable. This, by some opinions, makes DELETE operations no longer idempotent, however, the end-state of the resource is the same. Returning a 404 is acceptable and communicates accurately the status of the call.
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IDEMPOTENCE
Clients can make that same call repeatedly while producing the same result.
In other words, making multiple identical requests has the same effect as making a single request. Note that while idempotent operations produce the same result on the server (no side effects), the response itself may not be the same (e.g. a resource's state may change between requests).
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