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Chapter 2: HTTP

HTTP

face Josiah Wang

I’m sure you have seen “http://” all the time when you type a URL into your browser. But what exactly is HTTP?

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is “an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems” [source]

In simpler terms, it defines how a client (e.g. your browser, a mobile app) should communicate with a server (e.g. Google, Facebook, Imperial College web server).

At a high level, the client will send an HTTP request to the server. The server will receive the request and process it, and return an HTTP response to the client. The client receives the response and processes it accordingly.

The client sends a request and the server sends a response