# GET request method

The **`GET`** HTTP method requests a representation of the specified resource.
Requests using `GET` should only be used to request data and shouldn't contain a body.

> **NOTE:**
> The semantics of sending a message body in `GET` requests are undefined.
> Some servers may reject the request with a [4XX client error](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Status#client_error_responses) response.

<table class="properties">
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">Request has body</th>
      <td>No</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">Successful response has body</th>
      <td>Yes</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">[Safe](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Safe/HTTP)</th>
      <td>Yes</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">[Idempotent](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Idempotent)</th>
      <td>Yes</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">[Cacheable](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Cacheable)</th>
      <td>Yes</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <th scope="row">Allowed in HTML forms</th>
      <td>Yes</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

## Syntax

```http
GET <request-target>["?"<query>] HTTP/1.1
```

- `<request-target>`
  - : Identifies the target resource of the request when combined with the information provided in the [Host](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Host) header.
    This is an absolute path (e.g., `/path/to/file.html`) in requests to an origin server, and an absolute URL in requests to proxies (e.g., `http://www.example.com/path/to/file.html`).
- `<query>` 
  - : An optional query component preceded by a question-mark `?`.
    Often used to carry identifying information in the form of `key=value` pairs.

## Examples

### Successfully retrieving a resource

The following `GET` request asks for the resource at `example.com/contact`:

```http
GET /contact HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
User-Agent: curl/8.6.0
Accept: */*
```

The server sends back the resource with a [200 OK](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/200) status code, indicating success:

```http
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 14:18:33 GMT
Last-Modified: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 07:18:26 GMT
Content-Length: 1234

<!doctype html>
<!-- HTML content follows -->
```

## Specifications

## Browser compatibility

## See also

- [HTTP request methods](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Methods)
- [HTTP response status codes](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Status)
- [HTTP headers](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers)
- [Range](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Range) header
- [POST](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Methods/POST) method