The HTTP gateway is accessed through HTTP GET or POST requests. A Windchill URL generally takes the following form:

The <class name> and <method name> are used by the method server to dispatch the request to a specific method for processing, and <arguments> is a URL-encoded query string. The query string is used to supply additional data that is specific to the method being invoked, such as an object ID. When using a POST request, additional data may also be supplied within the body of the POST request.

This data can range from simple URL-encoded HTML form data to multi-part MIME messages containing the entire contents of one or more files. In either case, the target class is responsible for forming the URL, and, the target method understands what to expect.

Many target methods accept both GET and POST requests, and expect the GET request's query string or the POST request's body to contain URL-encoded form data. This is the standard encoding that would result from submitting a simple HTML form to the web server. It allows using HTML forms as test drivers for these methods, even if the requests are generated in Windchill Java applets rather than from HTML forms.

Basically, URL-encoded form data sends arbitrary name=value pairs separated by a question mark (?). All spaces are replaced by plus characters (+), and all special characters are hex-escaped into %dd format, where dd is the hexadecimal ASCII value that represents the original character.