Question

I am trying to use Jquery.ajax() with PUT and DELETE methods and sending some data along with the request but in the php side when printing the request it comes empty.

$.ajax({
url: 'ajax.php',
type: 'DELETE',
data: {some:'some',data:'data'},
}

In PHP:

print_r($_REQUEST);

and I get an empty array.
I don’t know if it is a jquery or php thing or simply I can’t send data that way.
I know DELETE method is meant to be used without sending additional data but here every ajax request is sent to the same script.

Answer 1

To retrieve the contents of the HTTP request body from a PUT request in PHP you can’t use a superglobal like $_POST or $_GET or $_REQUEST because …

No PHP superglobal exists for PUT or DELETE request data

Instead, you need to manually retrieve the request body from STDIN or use the php://input stream.

$_put = file_get_contents('php://input');

The $_GET superglobal will still be populated in the event of a PUT or DELETE request. If you need to access those values, you can do it in the normal fashion. I’m not familiar with how jquery sends along the variables with a DELETE request, so if $_GET isn’t populated you can instead try manually parsing the $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'] variable or using a custom “action” parameter as suggested by @ShankarSangoli to accommodate outdated browsers who can’t use javascript to send a DELETE request in the first place.