HEAD
The HTTP HEAD
method requests the headers that would be returned if the HEAD
request's URL was instead requested with the HTTP GET
method. For example, if a URL might produce a large download, a HEAD
request could read its Content-Length
header to check the filesize without actually downloading the file.
Warning: A response to a HEAD
method should not have a body. If it has one anyway, that body must be ignored: any representation headers that might describe the erroneous body are instead assumed to describe the response which a similar GET
request would have received.
If the response to a HEAD
request shows that a cached URL response is now outdated, the cached copy is invalidated even if no GET
request was made.
Request has body | No |
---|---|
Successful response has body | No |
Safe | Yes |
Idempotent | Yes |
Cacheable | Yes |
Allowed in HTML forms | No |
Syntax
http
HEAD /index.html
Specifications
Specification |
---|
HTTP Semantics # HEAD |
Browser compatibility
BCD tables only load in the browser