# Do I have to care about other methods than GET and POST? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [October 24, 2007, 11:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/do-i-have-to-care-about-other-methods-than-get-and-post/118224 "2007-10-24T23:03:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/josh)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2007, 11:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/do-i-have-to-care-about-other-methods-than-get-and-post/118224/1 "2007-10-24T23:03:16Z")
Hi all Sometimes I check in a controller if the method is GET or POST. But afaik there are other methods - do I have to care about them? Is the following enough? if request.get? … elsif request.post? … end Or do I have to add also an else block? if request.get? … elsif request.post? … else raise “Boah!” end Thanks for infos Josh ---
**Author:** ![josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/josh)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2007, 11:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/do-i-have-to-care-about-other-methods-than-get-and-post/118224/2 "2007-10-24T23:25:49Z")
> Or do I have to add also an else block? > > if request.get? > … > elsif request.post? > … > else > raise “Boah!” > end IMO, defensive programming says there should almost always be an else in these type of constructs unless they’re being used to prepare special cases for the code that follows (code which doesn’t care if there’s neither a GET nor POST). So, what will your program do if neither of the first two are satisfied? If the code must have one or the other, then yes, you need an else. If the code modifies something in the cases of GET/POST and otherwise runs just fine if there is no GET/POST, then you do not need the else (because it would halt processing you’re expecting to happen). – gw ---
**Author:** ![josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/josh)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2007, 1:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/do-i-have-to-care-about-other-methods-than-get-and-post/118224/3 "2007-10-25T01:25:05Z")
Just to add to the last reply, there are now other very commonly used methods. Namely PUT, DELETE and sometimes HEAD. Rails 1.2 started this and Rails 2.0 will go beyond even what’s being done in 1.2. Not adding more methods, but “scaffold\_resource” is now simply “scaffold.” When generating scaffolding you will get RESTful controllers by default using the full set of HTTP methods. However, keep in mind that if the request is being generated from a web form it will use GET or POST (at least until browsers get smart enough to handle the other methods). That being said in a modern Rails application you can’t count of the request coming from a HTML form. It just might be coming from another client that does understand the full REST method set, or even from a command line on the terminal. ---
**Author:** ![josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/josh)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 5:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/do-i-have-to-care-about-other-methods-than-get-and-post/118224/4 "2007-10-26T05:48:36Z")
If you really need to check for specific http verbs, the else is a must. Browsers are not smart enough to send anything than GET/POST, but other HTTP clients are, e.g.: wget, curl, just to name a few. curl can also send invalid http verbs. Rails provide a much better way of doing http verb checks, the verify method [1]. It also allow you to check for http/session parameters and xhr. If verify method not suit your needs, i will try to use a more idiomatic code like this. request\_is(request) do |verb| verb.post { do\_something1 } verb.get { do\_something2 } verb.head { do\_somethind3 } … end The main idea is to encapsulate common behaviour for all actions in a request proxy. I mean, logging, mail to administrators, or whathever else you need to do, and pass the other method calls to the real request instance through Object#send references: [1] [http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActionController/Verification/ClassMethods.html](http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActionController/Verification/ClassMethods.html) ---
**Author:** ![josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@josh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/josh)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2007, 1:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/do-i-have-to-care-about-other-methods-than-get-and-post/118224/5 "2007-10-27T13:35:11Z")
Thank you, guys.