HTTP Request Header Information

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HTTP request messages contain many headers that describe information about the client, the target of the request, the way the request should be handled, and any content sent with the request. Each header is identified by a name, such as "Host" followed by a string value. For example, consider the following HTTP request:

GET /art/gallery.dll/animals?animal=dog&color=black HTTP/1.0
Connection: Keep-Alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/3.0b4Gold (WinNT; I)
Host: www.TSite.com:1024
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, */*

The first line identifies the request as a GET. A GET request message asks the Web server application to return the content associated with the URI that follows the word GET (in this case art/gallery.dll/animals?animal=doc&color=black). The last part of the first line indicates that the client is using the HTTP 1.0 standard.

The second line is the Connection header, and indicates that the connection should not be closed once the request is serviced. The third line is the User-Agent header, and provides information about the program generating the request. The next line is the Host header, and provides the Host name and port on the server that is contacted to form the connection. The final line is the Accept header, which lists the media types the client can accept as valid responses.

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