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I am currently writing an application that will validate form data from an admin.

As far as I can see I have two option to do this:

GET and POST requests to the same URL

GET /admin/category/new present an HTML form to create a new category

POST /admin/category/new which POSTs here, if valid it just reloads the HTML form along with the submitted data and relevant errors until it passes validation. However if a user refreshes they are asked by the browser to resend the data.

GET and POST to different RESTful URLs

GET /admin/category/new present an HTML form to create a new category

POST /admin/category which would could handles PUT, DELETE requests as well. If the validation fails and a user is redirected back to GET /admin/category/new is it OK to persist both the error and previous input in session flash? What would happen if a user was submitting multiple edits across a number of browser windows. How do you ensure that previous input is attached to the right form.

The main reason I ask is that when I am updating multiple items in Magento or WordPress multiple flash messages queue in one window that relate to other windows updates. So which option is the best? or easiest to maintain?

user2856585
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  • possible duplicate of [Reload browser window after POST without prompting user to resend POST data](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4869721/reload-browser-window-after-post-without-prompting-user-to-resend-post-data) – Gajus Apr 10 '14 at 05:53

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I suggest using the POST-redirect-GET design pattern.

POST-Redirect-GET, or GET-After-POST, is a design pattern used by some web applications in which the web browser is redirected to a page immediately after the web server finishes processing an HTTP POST request. This can improve usability after a user submits a form by letting the user refresh the page or browse back to the page without resubmitting the form.

Personally I find this leads to cleaner code and is easier to maintain.

Matt S
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  • OK, but where to persist data that has failed validation to repopulate form? Is using session enough or can multiple requests make cause data from request n load in request n+1 for example? – user2856585 Oct 13 '13 at 20:08
  • I prefer to only redirect after form processing succeeds. No session necessary. That way I can easily refill the form with the posted unsaved data. – Matt S Oct 13 '13 at 21:20
  • Ah, so you use the first option and `POST` to the same URL, rather than the second pattern that mirrors Ruby on Rails routing. – user2856585 Oct 14 '13 at 09:18
  • I see from this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7843271/rails-confused-by-url-change-when-model-validations-fail why Option 1 is the best method. Thank you! – user2856585 Oct 14 '13 at 09:21