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What is the diff between put vs patch?

PUT and PATCH are HTTP verbs and they both relate to updating a resource. The main difference between PUT and PATCH requests are in the way the server processes the enclosed entity to modify the resource identified by the Request-URI.

In a PUT request, the enclosed entity is considered to be a modified version of the resource stored on the origin server, and the client is requesting that the stored version be replaced.

With PATCH, however, the enclosed entity contains a set of instructions describing how a resource currently residing on the origin server should be modified to produce a new version.

Also, another difference is that when you want to update a resource with PUT request, you have to send the full payload as the request whereas with PATCH, you only send the parameters which you want to update.

The most commonly used HTTP verbs POST, GET, PUT, DELETE are similar to CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) operations in database. We specify these HTTP verbs in the capital case. So, the below is the comparison between them.

  • POST - create
  • GET - read
  • PUT - update
  • DELETE - delete

PATCH: Submits a partial modification to a resource. If you only need to update one field for the resource, you may want to use the PATCH method.