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PATCH

The HTTP PATCH request method applies partial modifications to a resource.

The HTTP PUT method only allows complete replacement of a document. Unlike PUT, PATCH is not idempotent, meaning successive identical patch requests may have different effects. However, it is possible to issue PATCH requests in such a way as to be idempotent.

PATCH (like PUT) may have side-effects on other resources.

To find out whether a server supports PATCH, a server can advertise its support by adding it to the list in the Allow or Access-Control-Allow-Methods (for CORS) response headers.

Another (implicit) indication that PATCH is allowed, is the presence of the Accept-Patch header, which specifies the patch document formats accepted by the server.

Request has body Yes
Successful response has body Yes
Safe No
Idempotent No
Cacheable No
Allowed in HTML forms No

Syntax

PATCH /file.txt HTTP/1.1 

Example

Request

PATCH /file.txt HTTP/1.1 
Host: www.example.com
Content-Type: application/example
If-Match: "e0023aa4e"
Content-Length: 100

[description of changes]

Response

A successful response is indicated with a 204 response code, because the response in the example does not carry a message body. (which a response with the 200 code would have). Note that other success codes could be used as well.

HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Content-Location: /file.txt
ETag: "e0023aa4f"

Specifications

Specification Title
RFC 5789: PATCH PATCH Method for HTTP

See also

© 2005–2018 Mozilla Developer Network and individual contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Methods/PATCH