Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Development Tools HTTP Basics Introduction to HTTP Sending Data with a POST Request

Olivier Van hamme
Olivier Van hamme
5,418 Points
Posted by Olivier Van hamme
Olivier Van hamme
5,418 Points

I cannot replicate the 404 error in the video at [4:14] .

When I set the Content-Length to 30 characters — less than is required — I simply get a shortened data string back as a response instead of the 404 error :

Here is the original POST Request in the terminal on my Mac :

POST /post HTTP/1.1
Host: httpbin.org
Content-Length: 30

firstname=Dorothy&language=English

After pressing enter , I get back the following response :

"data": "firstname=Dorothy&language=Eng"

Notice how the original word — English — has been shortened to Eng .

James Croxford
James Croxford
12,722 Points

I've just had the same issue here (Windows, using workspaces). I copied the input directly from the tutorial:

 POST /post HTTP/1.1                                                                                                                                                                            
Host: httpbin.org                                                                                                                                                                              
Content-Length: 30                                                                                                                                                                             

firstname=Chris&language=English                                                                                                                                                               
HTTP/1.1 200 OK                                                                                                                                                                                
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true                                                                                                                                                         
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *                                                                                                                                                                 
Content-Type: application/json                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
Referrer-Policy: no-referrer-when-downgrade                                                                                                                                                    
Server: nginx                                                                                                                                                                                  
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff                                                                                                                                                                
X-Frame-Options: DENY                                                                                                                                                                          
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block                                                                                                                                                                
Content-Length: 269                                                                                                                                                                            
Connection: keep-alive                                                                                                                                                                         

{                                                                                                                                                                                              
  "args": {},                                                                                                                                                                                  
  "data": "firstname=Chris&language=Engli",                                                                                                                                                    
  "files": {},                                                                                                                                                                                 
  "form": {},                                                                                                                                                                                  
  "headers": {                                                                                                                                                                                 
    "Content-Length": "30",                                                                                                                                                                    
    "Host": "httpbin.org"                                                                                                                                                                      
  },

Like in your case, the query input is just cut down and accepted.

1 Answer

Matt Coale
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Matt Coale
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 17,884 Points
Matt Coale
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Matt Coale
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 17,884 Points

I was getting the same results as you where the characters were getting cut off at 30 bytes. It makes sense, per the content-length that was set, but it's confusing versus watching the video.