HTTP methods

The method describes the request’s intent.

• GET retrieves a resource.
• POST submits data or starts an action.
• PUT replaces a resource.
• PATCH updates part of a resource.
• DELETE removes a resource.
• HEAD asks for the headers a GET would return, without the body.
• OPTIONS asks which communication options are available.

For a notes API, you might use:

GET /notes
POST /notes
GET /notes/42
PATCH /notes/42
DELETE /notes/42

HTTP does not automatically enforce what a method means. A server could delete data in response to GET, but that would violate expectations and cause problems for caches, crawlers, and browsers.