Why is $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] always GET?

Question

I'm a bit confused about this. I'm hoping it's something wildly obvious I've missed! I have a very simple form:

<form class="form-signin" role="form" name="login" method="POST" action="/page">
  <input type="password" name="password" />
  <input type="submit" value="Sign in" />
</form>

Note: this page lives at /page and is echoed after the following HTML:

On /page I have this at the very top of the file:

<?php
var_dump($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']);

For some reason, it always shows up as GET when I submit this form. If I take the action="/page" part out then it shows up as POST. What am I missing here?

Note: Even when I load the page, then put at exit after the above var_dump() call, it still shows GET.

In the inspector's timeline I see this for the request:

enter image description here

What is `action="/page"`? Doesn't look like a file path, how is it routed? — Flosculus, Oct 22 '14 at 11:16
There is an index.php page in there. No .htaccess or any clever routing going on and there's no redirect cache or anything messing about. — LeonardChallis, Oct 22 '14 at 11:17
I was about to say. It looks like it is redirecting after *processing* the post request. Can we see the `index.php`? — Flosculus, Oct 22 '14 at 11:18
You need to have some kind of routing from your form to /page. That SHOULD return POST. I've tried it just in case using page.php instead of /page — nax, Oct 22 '14 at 11:19
Any change if you stipulate the action as `/page/index.php?` — Mitya, Oct 22 '14 at 11:19
In your network panel, after you submit the form, what do you see to `/page`? — ʰᵈˑ, Oct 22 '14 at 11:21
I have just added some notes to clear up confusion. This is one single page (index.php) always referenced by /page. — LeonardChallis, Oct 22 '14 at 11:22
It works for me when you change `action="/page"` to `action="/page/"` — Danijel, Oct 22 '14 at 11:23
Open up Firebug or whichever and tell us the `referrer` for the mystery `GET` request. — Flosculus, Oct 22 '14 at 11:23
Can you specify more about the server setup? apache, nginx? the current configuration. Any proxy? — nax, Oct 22 '14 at 11:26
@Danijel Thanks, yes that works for me too. I'm adding more information to the question — LeonardChallis, Oct 22 '14 at 11:32
I've figured this out thanks to everyone's observations and follow up questions and detailed in my answer. Thanks all! — LeonardChallis, Oct 22 '14 at 11:38
Try replacing the file extension (i.e. ,php) with a forward slash (/). Worked for me. — Alan N, Aug 31 '22 at 22:32

score 20 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 22 '14 at 11:36

20

Thanks to the comments to my question I have found the answer to be in apache configuration. It appears that, because the index.php file is inside a folder called page, apache will automatically redirect to the page with a slash on it. This is the default setting as seen in the Apache directorySlash documentation.

As they warn against turning this off, I will just change the url to what I'm posting. Alternatively, of course, I could add a .htaccess file with proper rewrite rules setup.\

Thanks for everyone's help! As a side note, Safari's inspector left me a little wanting in this case. Chrome turned out to be a far better option for testing.

answered Oct 22 '14 at 11:36

LeonardChallis

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The answer before by Dist was the correct answer, even if you used a variant of the same solution. – Flosculus Oct 22 '14 at 11:42
Actually, it wasn't. It said it had to use /index.php but that's not true. Also, it didn't answer why it was happening, just a workaround. – LeonardChallis Oct 22 '14 at 11:46
1

It also happens in nginx. It seems to send the request to PHP as a GET unless the trailing slash is supplied. Very strange. – Dirigible Apr 18 '16 at 17:18

Why is $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] always GET?

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