The previous sections pretend that there is only one kind of request
in HTTP -- the GET
request. In fact, there are some others.
The HEAD
request method retrieves data about an resource. Polipo
does not normally use HEAD
, but will fall back to using it for
validation it if finds that a given server fails to cooperate with its
standard validation methods (see Cache transparency). Polipo will
correctly reply to a client's HEAD
request.
The POST
method is used to request that the server should do
something rather than merely sending an entity; it is usually used
with HTML forms that have an effect1.
The PUT
method is used to replace an resource with a different
instance; it is typically used by web publishing applications.
POST
and PUT
requests are handled pretty much like
GET
and HEAD
; however, for various reasons, some
precautions must be taken. In particular, any cached data for the
resource they refer to must be discarded, and they can never be
pipelined.
Finally, HTTP/1.1 includes a convenient backdoor with the
CONNECT
method. For more information, please see
Tunnelling connections.
Polipo does not currently handle the more exotic methods such as
OPTIONS
and PROPFIND
.