2

I want to make sure I'm following best practices here. I have a table of data that pulls from the database and in the last column I have links to edit or delete that row. I feel like I've always been told to never modify data on the server with a GET request. How would I handle deleting this data row with anything other than a GET request? Here's the code for the data table:

<table class="table table-hover notifications">
    <thead><tr><th>Search Parameter</th><th>Subreddits</th><th>Actions</th></thead>
    {% for notification in notifications %}
    <tr>
        <td>{{ notification.q }}</td>
        <td>{% for s in notification.subreddits %} {{ s.r }}<br>  {% endfor %}</td>
        <td><a href="{{ url_for('main.edit_notification', id=notification.id) }}">Edit</a> | <a href="">Delete</a></td>
    </tr>
    {% endfor %}
</table>

I guess I'm not sure how to approach building the url for Delete. I can build a delete method and pass the id of the element I want to delete (ex: /delete/1), but is that not modifying data with a GET request then?

Aylen
  • 3,524
  • 26
  • 36
jcaine04
  • 427
  • 1
  • 8
  • 13

1 Answers1

4

You can create a form that makes a POST request on submit, connected to a view that deletes the object when request.method is POST (passing the object ID in the URL, as you said).

I am not a Flask expert, but taking this code as example, your view should look something like:

@app.route('/delete/<int:id>', methods=['POST'])
def remove(id):
    object = Object.query.get_or_404(id)
    delete(object)
    return redirect(url_for('index'))

And your form like:

<form method="post" action="{{ url_for('remove', id=object.id) }}">
  <button type="submit">Delete</button>
</form>

The form action attribute forces the form to submit its information to the given URL/view.

Aylen
  • 3,524
  • 26
  • 36
  • That makes sense. It kind of serves as dual-purpose as well-- handles the deletion via POST and confirms that actual deletion. – jcaine04 Jul 17 '14 at 03:11
  • I'll have to check out Django's generic views. – jcaine04 Jul 17 '14 at 03:11
  • I'm sorry! I just noticed you are actually using Flask, not Django. I did some research and edited my answer to suit Flask. I hope it helps. – Aylen Jul 17 '14 at 06:30