Datapost

Datapost is a term used in computing to describe the transmission of data from a client to a server by posting a data payload, typically via HTTP POST. It is not a formal standard but a colloquial shorthand used across web development and data integration contexts. It can denote a data-centric message or payload delivered to an endpoint.

In web applications, datapost commonly occurs when a user submits a form or when an application calls an API using a POST request. Data can be encoded as application/x-www-form-urlencoded, multipart/form-data for file uploads, or application/json for structured payloads.

A datapost request targets a specific URL; the server parses the payload, validates it, and returns a response. It may be implemented in either stateful or stateless designs. Idempotency considerations are important: POST is not inherently idempotent, so clients may design operations to be idempotent when appropriate.

Security and reliability concerns include using TLS for transport encryption, authentication tokens, input validation, rate limiting, and robust error handling with retries. Data integrity can be enhanced with checksums or digital signatures when needed.

In data integration contexts, datapost can describe pipelines that send data to endpoints or to message queues. It contrasts with data pull methods, where data is retrieved by the receiver. Related concepts include REST, API design, webhooks, and various data interchange formats.