HTTP get

¢When you send form data to the server using the HTTP get method, the form data is appended to the URL specified in the action attribute of the <form> element.

¢The form data is separated from the URL using a question mark. Following the question mark you get the name/value pairs for each form control. Each name/value pair is separated by an ampersand (&).

¢One of the great advantages of passing form data in a URL is that it can be bookmarked. If you look at searches performed on major search engines such as Google, they tend to use the get method so that the page can be bookmarked.

HTTP get Disadvantage

¢The get method, however, has some disadvantages. Indeed, when sending sensitive data such as the password shown here, or credit card details, you should not use the get method because the sensitive data becomes part of the URL and is in full view to everyone (and could be bookmarked).

Situations to Avoid “Get”

❑ You are updating a data source such as a database or spreadsheet (because someone could make up URLs that would alter your data source).

❑ You are dealing with sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card details (because the sensitive form data would be visible as part of a URL).

❑ You have large amounts of data (because older browsers do not allow URLs to exceed more than 1,024 characters — although the recent versions of the main browsers do not have limits).

❑ Your form contains a file upload control (because uploaded files cannot be passed in the URL).