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The HTTP Location header field is returned in responses from an HTTP server under two circumstances:
- To ask a web browser to load a different web page (URL redirection). In this circumstance, the Location header should be sent with an HTTP status code of 3xx. It is passed as part of the response by a web server when the requested URI has:
- Moved temporarily;
- Moved permanently; or
- Processed a request, e.g. a POSTed form, and is providing the result of that request at a different URI
- To provide information about the location of a newly created resource. In this circumstance, the Location header should be sent with an HTTP status code of 201 or 202.[1]
An obsolete version of the HTTP 1.1 specifications (IETF RFC 2616) required a complete absolute URI for redirection.[2] The IETF HTTP working group found that the most popular web browsers tolerate the passing of a relative URL[3] and, consequently, the updated HTTP 1.1 specifications (IETF RFC 7231) relaxed the original constraint, allowing the use of relative URLs in Location headers.[4]
- ^ Richardson, Leonard (2007). RESTful Web Services. Sebastopol: O'Reilly. pp. 228–230. ISBN 978-0-596-52926-0.
- ^ "Location". Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1. IETF. June 1999. sec. 14.30. doi:10.17487/RFC2616. RFC 2616.
- ^ IETF HTTPbis Working Group Ticket 185[dead link]
- ^ "Location". Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content. IETF. June 2014. sec. 7.1.2. doi:10.17487/RFC7231. RFC 7231.