POST oR GET

[@ng3lu$]

Well ppl i am a bit curious about the meaning of the HTML element.
I really dont know what exactly does the method POST and GET and how does it influence the data typed into FORM.

If I have a form on the web

<FORM action="................." method="GET or POST">
...............
</FORM>

So what i have understood so far is that action is the script or page that handles the data typed in by the user and the method is what?

Thanx for help

[pwaring]

You can send more data via POST, whereas I believe GET is limited to 256 bytes or something like that (not sure exactly how little though).

[hiddeninclouds]

the get method sends data through the URL, the post method allows for a more controlled method of accepting data

[embro1001]

To be more specific, GET sends the information through the URL, allowing people to possibile change certain variables (and therefore exploit certain scripts), while the POST method sends the information through the message body (via your browers environmental variables cache). Typically, GET is used only for information retrieval (like...forums!), whereas POST can be used for almost anything (like sending data to store in an SQL server, for example).

[xmaddness]

Originally posted here by embro1001
To be more specific, GET sends the information through the URL, allowing people to possibile change certain variables (and therefore exploit certain scripts), while the POST method sends the information through the message body (via your browers environmental variables cache). Typically, GET is used only for information retrieval (like...forums!), whereas POST can be used for almost anything (like sending data to store in an SQL server, for example).

But don't by any means think that someone couldn't send their own variables thru POST.
All I have to do is write my own form, and have it submit to your action file. e.g.

<form action="www.yoursite.com/yourscript.(php, html, etc...)" )
<input type="hidden" name="your var name" value="what_ever_value_I_want">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Send My Variable to your script">
</form>



So what is the moral of this story? Never ever send private information thru GET -or- POST. All private data should be sent via session variables, or saved in databases. If you -must- send private data thru POST, be sure to do it via a SSL secure server.


xmaddness