HTTP fundamentals and message flow

HTTP as a web client-server protocol

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the core client-server protocol used on the Web to fetch and exchange resources such as HTML documents, images, videos, scripts, and form submissions. In HTTP, the client (typically a web browser or another user-agent) initiates communication by sending an HTTP request, and the server replies with an HTTP response. A complete web page is usually assembled from multiple resources retrieved through separate request/response messages rather than a single continuous data stream. HTTP operates at the application layer and is carried over reliable transport such as TCP, or over TLS-encrypted TCP for HTTPS. Although HTTP itself is stateless (each request is independent of the next), it supports stateful behavior through mechanisms like cookies for sessions. Between clients and servers, proxies and gateways may relay, cache, filter, balance load, authenticate, and log traffic, affecting performance while HTTP remains layered and largely abstracted from lower network details. Over time, HTTP has evolved from HTTP/1.0 to HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, improving efficiency via persistent connections and multiplexing, while keeping the fundamental request/response model.

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Resources composing a complete web document

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