[thelist] Only IE-pc doesn't want to send form?

kasimir-k evolt at kasimir-k.fi
Tue Feb 14 17:01:42 CST 2006


> Op 14-feb-06, om 22:16 heeft michael ensor het volgende geschreven:
>> GET sends the data as one string, so unless you know your form data
>> will never form a string longer than 255 characters you should always
>> use POST. Unix limit for string data is 255 characters.......

Sorry Michael, but that is actually not quite correct. Unix has no such 
limit for "string data". And the choice of request method (GET or POST) 
must be done on other basis than the amount of data.

Pieter Roosens scribeva in 14/02/2006 21:38:
> Yes, thanks Michael. Now I remember I always used POST years ago, but  
> without knowing why .. ah! That's always dangerous obviously ;-)

Indeed it may be dangerous to do things without knowing why :-)

But fortunately it is very easy to get to know things - just look at the 
specs, in this case the HTTP specs:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html

And this section tells when to use GET, and when POST:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec9.html#sec9.1

"In particular, the convention has been established that the GET and 
HEAD methods SHOULD NOT have the significance of taking an action other 
than retrieval."

Saving data, sending emails etc. DO take other actions than just 
retrieval, so in those cases POST should be used.

Roger Ly scribeva in 14/02/2006 19:33:
> Some unconfirmed playing around seems to indicate that IE won't
> attempt to process the URL if it is generated to be longer than 2101
> characters.

Here comes the confirmation:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q208427

"Internet Explorer has a maximum uniform resource locator (URL) length 
of 2,083 characters, with a maximum path length of 2,048 characters. 
This limit applies to both POST and GET request URLs. "

But obviously:
"POST, however, is not limited by the size of the URL for submitting 
name/value pairs, because they are transferred in the header and not the 
URL. "

.k



More information about the thelist mailing list