### OPTIONS

OPTIONS is mostly used for CORS requests. The CORS page has more about that. It also tells you which methods are available.

DELETE

Used in many APIs (like the Stripe API) to delete resources.

box with a smiley face 1: DELETE /v1/customers/cus_12345
་(“delete this customer please!”)

box with a smiley face 2: 200 OK (“deleted!”)

PUT

Used in some APIs (like the S3 API) to create or update resources. PUT /cat/1234 lets you GET /cat/1234 later.

PATCH

Used in some APIs for partial updates to a resource (“just change this 1 field”).

TRACE

I’ve never seen a server that supports this, you probably don’t need to know about it.

CONNECT

Different from all the others: instead of making a request to a server directly, it asks for a proxy to open a connection.

If you set the HTTPS_PROXY environment variable to a proxy server, many HTTP libraries will use this protocol to proxy your requests.

client, represented by a box with a smiley face:
CONNECT test.com
$AFO XXRTZ (encrypted request)

proxy, also represented by a box with a smiley face, thinking: ok, I’ll open a connection to test.com.

proxy: $AFO XXRTZ

test.com, represented by a box with a smiley face: [is here]