The difference between TCP and HTTP

1:TCP

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol): Transmission Control Protocol is a connection-oriented and reliable transport layer protocol, mainly used for data transmission on the Internet.

TCP uses a three-way handshake to establish a connection and provides functions such as error detection, data segmentation, retransmission control, and flow control to ensure reliable transmission of data.

The TCP protocol divides data into several data segments. Each data segment includes sequence number, confirmation number, control bit and other information. During the data segment transmission process, the receiver will send confirmation information to confirm which data segments have been received. At the same time, if If a lost data segment is found, the sender will be asked to resend it.

The TCP protocol is one of the most commonly used protocols on the Internet. Most application layer protocols are based on the TCP protocol for data transmission, such as HTTP, FTP, Telnet, etc.

Second: HTTP

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): Hypertext Transfer Protocol is an application layer protocol mainly used for data transmission and interaction on the Web, supporting communication between clients and servers.

The HTTP protocol is connectionless, that is, each request and response is independent, and the server does not save any previous state information, thus ensuring its flexibility and scalability. The HTTP protocol uses a request-response model. The client sends a request and the server returns a response. The response contains information such as response code, response header, and response body.

The HTTP protocol is mainly used to transmit various resources of HTML documents and Web pages, including text, images, audio, video, etc. HTTP protocol is widely used in web application development, such as web browsers, web servers, web services, etc. are all based on HTTP protocol. The HTTP protocol is closely related to the TCP protocol. HTTP requests and responses are transmitted through the TCP protocol.

Three: The relationship between HTTP and TCP

TCP is a transport layer protocol, a connection-oriented, reliable, byte stream-based transmission protocol. In the Internet, the TCP protocol is one of the most commonly used transmission protocols.

The HTTP protocol is an application layer protocol based on the TCP protocol. HTTP requests and responses are transmitted through the TCP protocol. When the client initiates an HTTP request, a TCP connection is established between the client and the server, and HTTP data is transmitted on the connection. During the transmission process, the TCP protocol will provide reliability guarantees, such as data packet sorting and retransmission. Therefore, the HTTP protocol can ensure the reliability and integrity of data transmission in unstable network environments.

To put it simply, the TCP protocol provides reliable transmission services, while the HTTP protocol is based on the TCP protocol and uses the reliability guarantee provided by the TCP protocol to realize data transmission between the client and the server. Therefore, TCP and HTTP are closely related and often used together.

Four: The difference between TCP and HTTP

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) are two different protocols in the field of Internet transmission:

Different levels: TCP protocol is located at the transport layer, and HTTP protocol is located at the application layer.
Different functions: The TCP protocol is mainly used to provide reliable data transmission services to ensure that data reaches its destination in an complete and orderly manner. The HTTP protocol is mainly used to transmit hypertext data between Web browsers and Web servers. It specifies the communication format and behavior specifications between the client and the server.
The connection establishment methods are different: TCP protocol requires a three-way handshake to establish a connection, that is, the client sends a request to the server, the server responds with a confirmation, and sends a confirmation back to the client. The HTTP protocol realizes connection through the interaction between the client sending a request to the server and the server sending a response to the client.
The data formats are different: TCP protocol transmits a binary stream and has no concept of data type, while HTTP protocol transmits text and binary data with clearly defined data types.
Status remains different: The TCP protocol is connection-oriented. Once a connection is established, it remains connected until the connection is disconnected. The HTTP protocol is stateless, there is no data interaction and state maintenance between each request, each request is separate, and the server does not retain any session state.

The TCP protocol and the HTTP protocol are very different in terms of functions, data formats, connection methods, state retention, etc., but they both play an important role in the field of Internet transmission.