Payload body

If transfer encoding is not used, the payload body and message body are the same!

For example, in this response the message body contains only the payload body: "Mozilla Developer Network":

http

                                    
                                        
                                            HTTP/1.1
                                            200
                                            OK
                                        
                                        
                                            Content-Type
                                            :
                                            text/plain
                                        
                                        Mozilla Developer Network

By contrast, the below response uses transfer encoding to encode the payload body into chunks. The payload body (information) sent is still "Mozilla Developer Network", but the message body includes additional data to separate the chunks:

http

                                    
                                        
                                            HTTP/1.1
                                            200
                                            OK
                                        
                                        
                                            Content-Type
                                            :
                                            text/plain
                                        
                                        
                                            Transfer-Encoding
                                            :
                                            chunked
                                        
                                        7\r\n
Mozilla\r\n
9\r\n
Developer\r\n
7\r\n
Network\r\n
0\r\n
\r\n

For more information see RFC 7230, section 3.3: Message Body and RFC 7230, section 3.3.1: Transfer-Encoding .

Payload Body