HTTP Verb PATCH is approved

Last week's announcement that HTTP PATCH has been adopted as an official verb via RFC 5789 has generated a lot of excitement (and questions). As a summary, the intention of each verb is:

• POST to create a new resource when the client cannot predict the identity on the origin server (think a new order)
• PUT to override the definition of a specified resource with what is passed in from the client
• PATCH to override a portion of a specified resource in a predictable and effectively transactional way (if the entire patch cannot be performed, the server should not do any part of it)

The goal is to convey the intent of the patch more clearly than is possible with the more generic POSTing of modifications. Specific patch diff formats will emerge for modifying plain text, HTML, XML, etc. Semantic Universe

This is huge. Finally we have more verb to refine REST APIs operation.