Detecting request type in PHP (GET, POST, PUT or DELETE)

By using

$_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']

Example

if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {     // The request is using the POST method}

For more details please see the documentation for the $_SERVER variable.

REST in PHP can be done pretty simple. Create http://example.com/test.php (outlined below). Use this for REST calls, e.g. http://example.com/test.php/testing/123/hello. This works with Apache and Lighttpd out of the box, and no rewrite rules are needed.

<?php$method = $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'];$request = explode("/", substr(@$_SERVER['PATH_INFO'], 1));switch ($method) {  case 'PUT':    do_something_with_put($request);      break;  case 'POST':    do_something_with_post($request);      break;  case 'GET':    do_something_with_get($request);      break;  default:    handle_error($request);      break;}

Detecting the HTTP method or so called REQUEST METHOD can be done using the following code snippet.

$method = $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'];if ($method == 'POST'){    // Method is POST} elseif ($method == 'GET'){    // Method is GET} elseif ($method == 'PUT'){    // Method is PUT} elseif ($method == 'DELETE'){    // Method is DELETE} else {    // Method unknown}

You could also do it using a switch if you prefer this over the if-else statement.

If a method other than GET or POST is required in an HTML form, this is often solved using a hidden field in the form.

<!-- DELETE method --><form action='' method='POST'>    <input type="hidden" name'_METHOD' value="DELETE"></form><!-- PUT method --><form action='' method='POST'>    <input type="hidden" name'_METHOD' value="PUT"></form>

For more information regarding HTTP methods I would like to refer to the following StackOverflow question:

HTTP protocol's PUT and DELETE and their usage in PHP