Web API GET vs POST

asp.net-web-api, c#

Solution

You should take a look at the http documentation in w3c.

`GET` is recommended for reading data and `POST` is used to send information (write operations) into the server.

From client side perspective, you could set in jquery ajax setup, to do not use cache with the follow code:

$.ajaxSetup({
    cache: false
});

It will generate a random argument on the async request to make a different request everytime, add a parameter like this: `?_=31312312312`.

Problem

I initially setup a Web API (not any expert with web api) and followed someone's tutorial online for passing in parameters to a simple get API call. I had originally created a GET with query strings but as the tutorial showed how using POST allows me to pass JSON to an class object in POST API parameter, it seemed a good idea. Later on one developer said this was bad practice? Is it? Should I always use GET instead of POST which in essence is what it should be anyway... a GET call, but I like the idea of passing parameters via an object and avoiding a long API call with query strings. So: ``` $.ajax({ url: '\api\getlist\1?param2=yyyy&param3=kikkkk&param4=88' etc }) ``` or ``` var params = .... $.ajax({ url: '\api\getlist\', data: params }) ``` What should I do, change the code back to using GET? What about caching?

Original source