HTTP: The Definitive Guide

For More Information

Later chapters of this book will explore HTTP in much more detail, but you might find that some of the following sources contain useful background about particular topics we covered in this chapter.

HTTP Protocol Information

HTTP Pocket Reference

Clinton Wong, O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. This little book provides a concise introduction to HTTP and a quick reference to each of the headers and status codes that compose HTTP transactions.

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/

This W3C web page contains many great links about the HTTP protocol.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt

RFC 2616, “Hypertext Transfer Protocol—HTTP/1.1,” is the official specification for HTTP/1.1, the current version of the HTTP protocol. The specification is a well-written, well-organized, detailed reference for HTTP, but it isn’t ideal for readers who want to learn the underlying concepts and motivations of HTTP or the differences between theory and practice. We hope that this book fills in the underlying concepts, so you can make better use of the specification.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1945.txt

RFC 1945, “Hypertext Transfer Protocol—HTTP/1.0,” is an informational RFC that describes the modern foundation for HTTP. It details the officially sanctioned and “best-practice” behavior of web applications at the time the specification was written. It also contains some useful descriptions about behavior that is deprecated in HTTP/1.1 but still widely implemented by legacy applications.

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/AsImplemented.html ...