IETF Publishes RFC 10008 QUERY Method for Safe HTTP Requests as Browsers Still Lack Support
Updated
Updated · InfoWorld · Jul 14
IETF Publishes RFC 10008 QUERY Method for Safe HTTP Requests as Browsers Still Lack Support
2 articles · Updated · InfoWorld · Jul 14
Summary
RFC 10008 introduces QUERY as a proposed HTTP method that sends complex request data in the body while remaining safe and idempotent, targeting cases where GET URLs become too long or unwieldy.
QUERY is meant to replace the common POST workaround for read-only searches, letting caches and retry systems treat those requests as reusable because the method explicitly declares no state change.
Deployment remains incomplete: no major browser supports QUERY yet, though Node.js and Go already do, and related standards such as HTML forms still need updates before broad use.
The standard includes a fallback path—clients can map a QUERY result to an equivalent GET resource via Location—giving older infrastructure a way to handle requests during slow ecosystem adoption.