Building RESTful Web Services with .NET Core

POST versus PUT explained

The use of POST and PUT can be summarized in the following two points:

• PUT is idempotent—it can be repeated, and yields the same result every time. If the resource does not exist, it will create it; otherwise, it will update it.
• POST is nonidempotent—multiple resources will be created if it is called more than once.

The preceding contrast between these verbs is just a general difference. However, there is a very important and significant difference. When using PUT, specifying the complete URI of the resource is necessary. Otherwise, it won't work. For example, the following won't work as it does not specify the exact URI of the author, which can be done by specifying an ID:

PUT http://packtservice.com/Authors/ ...