### Documentation search

# Browser enhancements

> "There are two noncontroversial uses for overloaded POST. The first is to simulate HTTP's uniform interface for clients like web browsers that don't support PUT or DELETE"

> — RESTful Web Services, Leonard Richardson & Sam Ruby.

## Browser based PUT, DELETE, etc...

REST framework supports browser-based `PUT`, `DELETE` and other methods, by overloading `POST` requests using a hidden form field.

Note that this is the same strategy as is used in Ruby on Rails.

For example, given the following form:

    <form action="/news-items/5" method="POST">
        <input type="hidden" name="_method" value="DELETE">
    </form>

`request.method` would return `"DELETE"`.

## HTTP header based method overriding

REST framework also supports method overriding via the semi-standard `X-HTTP-Method-Override` header. This can be useful if you are working with non-form content such as JSON and are working with an older web server and/or hosting provider that doesn't recognise particular HTTP methods such as `PATCH`. For example Amazon Web Services ELB.

To use it, make a `POST` request, setting the `X-HTTP-Method-Override` header.

For example, making a `PATCH` request via `POST` in jQuery:

    $.ajax({
        url: '/myresource/',
        method: 'POST',
        headers: {'X-HTTP-Method-Override': 'PATCH'},
        ...
    });

## Browser based submission of non-form content

Browser-based submission of content types other than form are supported by using form fields named `_content` and `_content_type`:

For example, given the following form:

    <form action="/news-items/5" method="PUT">
        <input type="hidden" name="_content_type" value="application/json">
        <input name="_content" value="{'count': 1}">
    </form>

`request.content_type` would return `"application/json"`, and `request.stream` would return `"{'count': 1}"`

## URL based accept headers

REST framework can take `?accept=application/json` style URL parameters, which allow the `Accept` header to be overridden.

This can be useful for testing the API from a web browser, where you don't have any control over what is sent in the `Accept` header.

## URL based format suffixes

REST framework can take `?format=json` style URL parameters, which can be a useful shortcut for determining which content type should be returned from the view.

This is a more concise than using the `accept` override, but it also gives you less control. (For example you can't specify any media type parameters)

## Doesn't HTML5 support PUT and DELETE forms?

Nope. It was at one point intended to support `PUT` and `DELETE` forms, but was later dropped from the spec. There remains ongoing discussion about adding support for `PUT` and `DELETE`, as well as how to support content types other than form-encoded data.