Behind every web transaction lies the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) --- the language of web browsers and servers, of portals and search engines, of e-commerce and web services. Understanding HTTP is essential for practically all web-based programming, design, analysis, and administration. While the basics of HTTP are elegantly simple, the protocol's advanced features are notoriously confusing, because they knit together complex technologies and terminology from many disciplines. This book clearly explains HTTP and these interrelated core technologies, in twenty-one logically organized chapters, backed up by hundreds of detailed illustrations and examples, and convenient reference appendices. HTTP: The Definitive Guide explains everything people need to use HTTP efficiently -- including the "black arts" and "tricks of the trade" -- in a concise and readable manner. In addition to explaining the basic HTTP features, syntax and guidelines, this book clarifies related, but often misunderstood topics, such as: TCP connection management, web proxy and cache architectures, web robots and robots.txt files, Basic and Digest authentication, secure HTTP transactions, entity body processing, internationalized content, and traffic redirection. Many technical professionals will benefit from this book. Internet architects and developers who need to design and develop software, IT professionals who need to understand Internet architectural components and interactions, multimedia designers who need to publish and host multimedia, performance engineers who need to optimize web performance, technical marketing professionals who need a clear picture of core web architectures and protocols, as well as untold numbers of students and hobbyists will all benefit from the knowledge packed in this volume. There are many books that explain how to use the Web, but this is the one that explains how the Web works. Written by experts with years of design and implementation experience, this book is the definitive technical bible that describes the "why" and the "how" of HTTP and web core technologies. HTTP: The Definitive Guide is an essential reference that no technically-inclined member of the Internet community should be without.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 19 Ratings

Truly Definitive - 2005-01-07
Reviewer Rating:
Here's my advice: review the book's contents (you'll need to visit O'Reilly's site at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/httptdg/). Do you need a complete understanding of the topics? If so, buy this book. Everything is clearly explained in detail, with the chapters on security and internationalization being especially good. Highly recommended!

As relevant in 2009 as when it was written - 2009-05-13
Reviewer Rating:
Some of the existing reviews of this book go into excellent detail on how good this book is. I would like to add that while many technical books do not age well, the HTTP spec has not really changed in the past decade and the reason that this is still 'the definitive guide' is because this is so detailed there is no reason to replace it.
Still worth a read in 2009, and I suspect whenever you consider purchasing it.

A great book - 2009-01-25
Reviewer Rating:
I find I'm often grabbing for this book at work, as are all of my co-workers. This is an extremely valuable book that illustrates how HTTP truly works. It is far more user-friendly than the HTTP specs, but contains just as much information.

This should be required reading for anyone who writes web applications, and recommended reading for even anyone who writes web pages. In fact, get everyone to read it except for your grandmother, and you'll make the online world a better place.

great info inside this book. - 2009-10-28
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this book after reading some preview chapters. The book is actually a bit 'old'. It was first published a few years ago, but HTTP hasn't changed that much from that time. Something I like about this book is that it gives you links to more info at the end of each chapter.

The book is really easy to read, and it has diagrams to help you understand the processes that http and it's related technologies follow. It talks about optimization, proxy servers, security, gateways, tunnels, web robots, secure http and much more. It even has a script to write a small http app. If your goal is to fully understand the http protocol, this is a great book to start.

Great product - 2006-02-25
Reviewer Rating:
Very clear & easy to understand / logical / informative / well planned

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