Rails' link_to method: GETing when it should DELETE

Question

I'm following Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial, and for some reason the following code:

<%= link_to 'delete', user, :method => :delete, :confirm => "You sure?",
                                :title => "Delete #{user.name}" %>

Issues a GET request (as I verified by checking the rails server log). I also verified that the following line is in my application view:

<%= javascript_include_tag :all %>

One thing I didn't quite understand, and it's probably the source of my problem: where is the "delete" method defined? I verified in Hartl's source code that he defines a "destroy" method in the controller, not "delete". But even if I change the link_to to :method => :destroy, it just issues a GET.

I'm using Rails 3.1. Any tips?

Answer 1

Also check that this is in your application.js:

//= require jquery
//= require jquery_ujs 

Apparently I had the jquery without the jquery_ujs and I had the same problem until I added that.

Note that you may need to add these lines above any import statements within application.js.

Answer 2

Most browsers don't actually support the DELETE verb, so Rails fakes it by modifying the HTML it generates. Rails tacks on a HTML5 attribute called data-method and sets it to "delete". So when a user clicks on the link, it is actually issued as a GET request, but the data-method attribute allows for some Rails magic and means your routing code should recognize it as a DELETE request.

edit:

You can test it yourself in the console. Run bundle exec rails c to get into the console, and look at the HTML that this generates:

helper.link_to "delete", "foobar/delete", :method => 'delete'

The HTML should look like this:

<a href="foobar/delete" data-method="delete" rel="nofollow">delete</a>

Answer 3

You should use the following code

<%= button_to "delete", @user_current, :method => "delete" %>

It will solve the problem or add this line //= require jquery_ujs to application.js and use:

 <%= link_to 'delete', user, :method => :delete, data: {:confirm => "You sure?" } ,
                            :title => "Delete #{user.name}" %>

Answer 4

As browsers don't support the DELETE verb, Rails creates a workaround for this problem by simulating a DELETE request through a standard GET or POST. The way method: :delete works is with a JavaScript handler for all links with data-method="delete" which modifies the request so Rails processes it as a DELETE. This JavaScript handler is provided by the jquery_ujs library.

There are several things that could have gone wrong:

1. Make sure you have both jquery and jquery_ujs included in your application.js. Without both nothing will process the data attributes.
2. Make sure the link in question really has the method: :delete option specified.
3. Make sure for some reason you haven't stopped the event propagation of the link in question, like so for example:

$( 'a' ).click( function( event ) {
    event.stopPropagation()
})

As this would prevent the jquery_ujs handlers from being executed and the request will never be modified and will remain just a standard GET.

Answer 5

I faced the same problem with Michael's tutorial. The data-method="delete" actually works as expected - it does call the destroy action in the controller. The reason it tries to GET (and eventually fail) is the following:

You'll notice that one of the before_filter's in the controller is set to signed_in_user, and in session_helper.rb, you'll notice that signed_in_user calls store_location (private method), which updates session[:return_to] to the current URL.

So, back in your controller's destroy action, it tries to redirect_back_or which results in GET current_url. I modified the signed_in_user helper to only call store_location when user is not signed in already.

Answer 6

On rails 5 :

Have the same problem, all 'DELETE' posts were compromised, affecting my crud pages AND devise signout... to solve the problem all I had to do was :

//= require rails-ujs

Answer 7

All we need is add the below line of code

//= require jquery_ujs 

It seems like a bug:))

Answer 8

You want to do this in Rails 6+:

 link_to(
  'Delete Me',
   some_controller_path(model),
   data: { method: :delete }
 )

Answer 9

Use button_to instead of link_to.