GET is a method of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which provides read access to resources. Thus a principle of REST is recognizable, which is the uniform access to resources. In contrast to SOAP, where countless methods can be defined, there is the same access method for each resource according to the REST architectural style. The most common HTTP methods are POST to create a new resource, GET to read a resource, PUT to change a resource and DELETE to delete a resource. Unfortunately, HTTP (the World Wide Web protocol, which is the prototype of a RESTful architecture) does not always allow uniform access to resources.

For example, the number of call parameters of a GET request is limited. In practice, the POST method is then also offered for read access to a resource, i.e. exactly when a large number of call parameters are to be passed. In FORCE Bridge API this is the case with POST operations/search and POST productionOrder/search. The appendix “/search” indicates to the user that the call of the corresponding POST method is for read access.

Another exception is the change of hundreds of resources. Strictly orthodox RESTful would mean that the user would have to call a PUT method 100 times. Instead, in practice a suitable POST method is offered, which makes this possible with a single call. To indicate that the POST method serves a changing access to multiple resources, the appendix “/update” is then added. An example of this is POST operations/planningResults/update by which the planning result, which is a sub-resource of operations, can be changed for multiple operations.