HTTP POST with URL query parameters — good idea or not?

Question

I'm designing an API to go over HTTP and I am wondering if using the HTTP POST command, but with URL query parameters only and no request body, is a good way to go.

Considerations:

• "Good Web design" requires non-idempotent actions to be sent via POST. This is a non-idempotent action.
• It is easier to develop and debug this app when the request parameters are present in the URL.
• The API is not intended for widespread use.
• It seems like making a POST request with no body will take a bit more work, e.g. a Content-Length: 0 header must be explicitly added.
• It also seems to me that a POST with no body is a bit counter to most developer's and HTTP frameworks' expectations.

Are there any more pitfalls or advantages to sending parameters on a POST request via the URL query rather than the request body?

Edit: The reason this is under consideration is that the operations are not idempotent and have side effects other than retrieval. See the HTTP spec:

In particular, the convention has been established that the GET and HEAD methods SHOULD NOT have the significance of taking an action other than retrieval. These methods ought to be considered "safe". This allows user agents to represent other methods, such as POST, PUT and DELETE, in a special way, so that the user is made aware of the fact that a possibly unsafe action is being requested.

...

Methods can also have the property of "idempotence" in that (aside from error or expiration issues) the side-effects of N > 0 identical requests is the same as for a single request. The methods GET, HEAD, PUT and DELETE share this property. Also, the methods OPTIONS and TRACE SHOULD NOT have side effects, and so are inherently idempotent.

Answer 1

If your action is not idempotent, then you MUST use POST. If you don't, you're just asking for trouble down the line. GET, PUT and DELETE methods are required to be idempotent. Imagine what would happen in your application if the client was pre-fetching every possible GET request for your service – if this would cause side effects visible to the client, then something's wrong.

I agree that sending a POST with a query string but without a body seems odd, but I think it can be appropriate in some situations.

Think of the query part of a URL as a command to the resource to limit the scope of the current request. Typically, query strings are used to sort or filter a GET request (like ?page=1&sort=title) but I suppose it makes sense on a POST to also limit the scope (perhaps like ?action=delete&id=5).

Answer 2

Everyone is right: stick with POST for non-idempotent requests.

What about using both an URI query string and request content? Well it's valid HTTP (see note 1), so why not?!

It is also perfectly logical: URLs, including their query string part, are for locating resources. Whereas HTTP method verbs (POST - and its optional request content) are for specifying actions, or what to do with resources. Those should be orthogonal concerns. (But, they are not beautifully orthogonal concerns for the special case of ContentType=application/x-www-form-urlencoded, see note 2 below.)

Note 1: HTTP specification (1.1) does not state that query parameters and content are mutually exclusive for a HTTP server that accepts POST or PUT requests. So any server is free to accept both. I.e. if you write the server there's nothing to stop you choosing to accept both (except maybe an inflexible framework). Generally, the server can interpret query strings according to whatever rules it wants. It can even interpret them with conditional logic that refers to other headers like Content-Type too, which leads to Note 2:

Note 2: if a web browser is the primary way people are accessing your web application, and application/x-www-form-urlencoded is the Content-Type they are posting, then you should follow the rules for that Content-Type. And the rules for application/x-www-form-urlencoded are much more specific (and frankly, unusual): in this case you must interpret the URI as a set of parameters, and not a resource location. [This is the same point of usefulness Powerlord raised; that it may be hard to use web forms to POST content to your server. Just explained a little differently.]

Note 3: what are query strings originally for? RFC 3986 defines HTTP query strings as an URI part that works as a non-hierarchical way of locating a resource.

In case readers asking this question wish to ask what is good RESTful architecture: the RESTful architecture pattern doesn't require URI schemes to work a specific way. RESTful architecture concerns itself with other properties of the system, like cacheability of resources, the design of the resources themselves (their behavior, capabilities, and representations), and whether idempotence is satisfied. Or in other words, achieving a design which is highly compatible with HTTP protocol and its set of HTTP method verbs. :-) (In other words, RESTful architecture is not very presciptive with how the resources are located.)

Final note: sometimes query parameters get used for yet other things, which are neither locating resources nor encoding content. Ever seen a query parameter like 'PUT=true' or 'POST=true'? These are workarounds for browsers that don't allow you to use PUT and POST methods. While such parameters are seen as part of the URL query string (on the wire), I argue that they are not part of the URL's query in spirit.

Answer 3

You want reasons? Here's one:

A web form can't be used to send a request to a page that uses a mix of GET and POST. If you set the form's method to GET, all the parameters are in the query string. If you set the form's method to POST, all the parameters are in the request body.

Source: HTML 4.01 standard, section 17.13 Form Submission

Answer 4

From a programmatic standpoint, for the client it's packaging up parameters and appending them onto the url and conducting a POST vs. a GET. On the server-side, it's evaluating inbound parameters from the querystring instead of the posted bytes. Basically, it's a wash.

Where there could be advantages/disadvantages might be in how specific client platforms work with POST and GET routines in their networking stack, as well as how the web server deals with those requests. Depending on your implementation, one approach may be more efficient than the other. Knowing that would guide your decision here.

Nonetheless, from a programmer's perspective, I prefer allowing either a POST with all parameters in the body, or a GET with all params on the url, and explicitly ignoring url parameters with any POST request. It avoids confusion.

Answer 5

I would think it could still be quite RESTful to have query arguments that identify the resource on the URL while keeping the content payload confined to the POST body. This would seem to separate the considerations of "What am I sending?" versus "Who am I sending it to?".

Answer 6

The REST camp have some guiding principles that we can use to standardize the way we use HTTP verbs. This is helpful when building RESTful API's as you are doing.

In a nutshell: GET should be Read Only i.e. have no effect on server state. POST is used to create a resource on the server. PUT is used to update or create a resource. DELETE is used to delete a resource.

In other words, if your API action changes the server state, REST advises us to use POST/PUT/DELETE, but not GET.

User agents usually understand that doing multiple POSTs is bad and will warn against it, because the intent of POST is to alter server state (eg. pay for goods at checkout), and you probably don't want to do that twice!

Compare to a GET which you can do as often as you like (idempotent).

Answer 7

It would be fine to use query parameters on a POST end-point, provided they refer to an already-existing resource.

For example:

POST /user_settings?user_id=4
{
  "use_safe_mode": 1
}

The POST above has a query parameter referring to an existing resource. The body parameter defines the new resource to be created.

Edited:

I prefer this to having the path of the end-point to point directly to the already-existing recourse, like so:

POST /user_settings/4
{
...
}

The reason is three-fold:

1. I find it has better readability, since the query parameters are named, like "user_id" in the above, in stead of just "4".
2. Usually, there is also a GET endpoint to get the resource. In that case the path of the end-point and the query parameters will be the same and I like that symmetry.
3. I find the nesting can become cumbersome and difficult to read in case multiple parameters are needed to define the already-existing resource:

POST /user_settings/{user_id}/{which_settings_id}/{xyz}/{abc}/ ...
{
...
}

Answer 8

I agree - it's probably safer to use a GET request if you're just passing data in the URL and not in the body. See this similar question for some additional views on the whole POST+GET concept.