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Software Engineering vocabulary · APIs, Networking and Security

Payload

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈpeɪloʊd/nounCommon term

In software engineering, payload means: The actual data carried by a request, response or message, as opposed to the headers and other information around it.

In Turkish: veri yükü, istek gövdesi, yük

How it is used

Used when talking about what is sent: 'the request payload', 'the webhook payload', 'The payload is too large.' Teams check payload size, format and validation.

Example sentences

  1. The payload includes the order ID, the amount and the currency.

  2. The upload fails because the payload is larger than 10 MB.

Common collocations

  • request payload
  • response payload
  • payload size
  • JSON payload
  • JSONShort for JavaScript Object Notation: a simple text format for data, made of key-value pairs and lists, used by most web APIs.
  • APIShort for application programming interface: a set of rules that lets one program ask another program for data or actions in a fixed, documented way.
  • endpointA specific URL of an API that accepts requests for one kind of action, such as GET /users to list users or POST /orders to create an order.
  • RESTShort for representational state transfer: a common style for web APIs in which resources have URLs and are handled with HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: APIs, Networking and Security

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