The GET method in a REST API is used to retrieve information about a resource. It is a safe and idempotent method, meaning that it only retrieves data and does not change or modify any resource on the server, and can be repeated multiple times without any side effects.
The GET method is typically used to retrieve data from a specific resource by making a request to the corresponding endpoint.
The GET method is also typically used to retrieve a list of resources or to filter a set of resources.
For example, a client could make a GET request to the “products” endpoint to retrieve a list of all products available in an e-commerce API, or they could make a GET request to “products?category=books” to retrieve a list of all products that are books.
A typical GET request will include the following:
- The HTTP verb “GET”
- The endpoint or resource location, such as “/products”
- The headers, which may include additional information such as the accept type or the authentication information
- The request body is empty as it is not needed for a GET request
A typical GET response will include the following:
- The HTTP status code, such as 200 OK if the request was successful or 404 Not Found if the resource could not be found.
- The headers, which may include additional information such as the content type or caching directives.
- The response body will contain the data requested, such as a list of products or a specific product details.
It’s worth noting that the GET method is typically used to retrieve data from the server and it doesn’t have side effects, so it’s considered a safe method, and it’s also considered idempotent, which means that making multiple identical requests will have the same effect as making a single request.