method_parameters.rst

.. index::
   single: Routing; _method

Using HTTP Methods beyond GET and POST in Routes

When you are defining routes one of the restrictions you can put on whether a request matches the route is the HTTP method of the request. This is introduced in the routing chapter of the book ":doc:`/book/routing`" with examples using GET and POST. You can also use other HTTP verbs in this way. For example, if you have a blog post entry then you could use the same url pattern to show it, make changes to it and delete it by matching on GET, PUT and DELETE.

.. configuration-block::

    .. code-block:: yaml

        blog_show:
            pattern:  /blog/{slug}
            defaults: { _controller: AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:show }
            requirements:
                _method:  GET

        blog_update:
            pattern:  /blog/{slug}
            defaults: { _controller: AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:update }
            requirements:
                _method:  PUT

        blog_delete:
            pattern:  /blog/{slug}
            defaults: { _controller: AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:delete }
            requirements:
                _method:  DELETE

    .. code-block:: xml

        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

        <routes xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/routing"
            xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
            xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/routing http://symfony.com/schema/routing/routing-1.0.xsd">

            <route id="blog_show" pattern="/blog/{slug}">
                <default key="_controller">AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:show</default>
                <requirement key="_method">GET</requirement>
            </route>

            <route id="blog_update" pattern="/blog/{slug}">
                <default key="_controller">AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:update</default>
                <requirement key="_method">PUT</requirement>
            </route>

            <route id="blog_delete" pattern="/blog/{slug}">
                <default key="_controller">AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:delete</default>
                <requirement key="_method">DELETE</requirement>
            </route>
        </routes>

    .. code-block:: php

        use Symfony\Component\Routing\RouteCollection;
        use Symfony\Component\Routing\Route;

        $collection = new RouteCollection();
        $collection->add('blog_show', new Route('/blog/{slug}', array(
            '_controller' => 'AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:show',
        ), array(
            '_method' => 'GET',
        )));

        $collection->add('blog_update', new Route('/blog/{slug}', array(
            '_controller' => 'AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:update',
        ), array(
            '_method' => 'PUT',
        )));

        $collection->add('blog_delete', new Route('/blog/{slug}', array(
            '_controller' => 'AcmeDemoBundle:Blog:delete',
        ), array(
            '_method' => 'DELETE',
        )));

        return $collection;

Unfortunately it is not as simple as that is you are creating a website because most browsers do not support sending PUT and DELETE requests. Fortunately Symfony2 provides you with a simple way of working around this limitation. By including the _method parameter in the query string or parameters of an HTTP request Symfony2 will use this as the method when matching routes. This can be done easily in forms with a hidden field. So we could have a forms for editing and blog posts that looks like this:

<form action="{{ path('blog_update', { 'slug': blog.slug }) }}" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="_method" value="PUT"/>
    {{ form_widget(form) }}
    <button type="submit">Updare</button>
</form>

The submitted request will now match the blog_update route and the updateAction will be used to process the form.

Likewise the delete form could be changed to look like this:

<form action="{{ path('blog_delete', { 'slug': blog.slug }) }}" method="post">
    <input type="hidden" name="_method" value="DELETE"/>
    {{ form_widget(delete_form) }}
    <button type="submit">Delete</button>
</form>

It will then match the blog_delete route.