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Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 11:35:39 -0400
Message-ID: <e2111bbb0905140835m6a402eb4xad876f8aec52c835@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Allow overridden request methods
From: Paul Davis <paul.joseph.davis@gmail.com>
To: dev@couchdb.apache.org
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On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 3:26 AM, Brian Candler <B.Candler@pobox.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 06:58:47PM +0200, Jan Lehnardt wrote:
>>> Sorry for responding to my original message instead of a reply in the
>>> thread, but I seem to be having some issues with the mailing list.
>>> Oliver, you are right, I could use a javascript wrapper for flash. The
>>> problem with that is that it introduces a second dependency to
>>> interact with the REST interface.
>>
>> It adds a second API and complexity to CouchDB to support
>> non-standard clients. I.e: If you don't speak HTTP, you can't
>> talk to CouchDB.
>
> I think you'll find this is extremely common; many clients especially don=
't
> implement DELETE.
>
> The way Rails deals with it is to allow a form POST to have a _method fie=
ld,
> and if it's present, it takes precedence over the HTTP method.
>
> actionpack/lib/action_view/helpers/url_helper.rb:
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0method_tag =3D tag('input', :type =3D> 'hidden', :name=
 =3D> '_method', :value =3D> method.to_s)
>
> Of course, CouchDB doesn't take a application/x-www-form-urlencoded, it
> takes an application/json body. So I think the nearest equivalent would b=
e
> to allow a "_method" member in the JSON body and honour it for all POST
> requests [with JSON bodies]. Conveniently, CouchDB has already reserved a=
ll
> top-level keys beginning with underscores for its own purposes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Brian.
>

Eww. I'm all for supporting clients that have a brain dead HTTP
interface, but piggybacking protocol information into the payload
seems like not a good idea. If we're going to allow method overrides
I'd vote +10 internets for the header version.

But until someone shows me something that can't be accomplished using
the _bulk_docs API I'd be -0 on supporting the header even.

Paul Davis