CakePHP: Check and Deal with POST Requests for AJAX and REST Applications

Several times I have to check if a request it’s really a HTTP POST and if the data of post was passed in this request too, so these controllers where I need this check always have to check the data, and type of request…

To avoid repeat the code I wrote this method:

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	protected function _isPOST($data = false) {
		if ((isset($this->RequestHandler) && !$this->RequestHandler->isPost()) || ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] != 'POST')) {
			$this->redirect(null, 405);
			exit;
		} else if ($data === true && empty($this->data)) {
			$this->redirect(null, 400);
			exit;
		}
	}

You can put this method in your AppController

It’s really simple, but useful for me. The code just check if it’s a POST Request if it’s not, bring a HTTP CODE 405, check if the POST data it’s not empty if it is bring a HTTP CODE 400.

And that’s it, now you don’t need wrote codes like this anymore:

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	public function my_action() {
		if ($this->RequestHandler->isPost()) {
			if (!empty($this->data)) {
 
			} else {
 
			}
		} else {
 
		}
	}

You have just to put this:

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	public function my_action() {
		$this->_isPOST(true);
	}

The first argument it’s a boolean one, you pass true if you want to check if the $this->data it’s not empty, otherwise you pass false, or pass nothing.