What’s the difference between PUT and PATCH in a REST API?

[tirexxic]

What’s the difference between PUT and PATCH in a REST API?

[vgartg]

PUT replaces the entire resource with the new data you send, while PATCH only updates the fields you specify, leaving the rest unchanged.

[darkdisaster08]

PUT and PATCH are two methods that are often used for updating resources on the server. However, they differ in their approach.

PUT
PUT is used to replace an existing resource with a completely new one. In other words, if you send a PUT request to update a resource, the server will completely replace the existing resource with the new one.

For example, let's say you have a user profile with fields for name, email, and password. If you use PUT to update the profile, you’ll have to send the updated values for all three fields: name, email, and password.

PATCH
On the other hand, PATCH is used to make a partial update to an existing resource. In other words, if you send a PATCH request to update a resource, the server will only update the specified fields in the existing resource.

So, if you only want to update the email field only, you would send just that field with the new value. The server then applies the changes you specified and leaves the rest of the resource unchanged.