zf2 restful not reach update method - rest

Question

I made a restful controller that if I send the id the get method receives it. But when I update a form I expect the update method to process but I cant get to the right config for this and after 1 day with this issue I decided to right it down here.
Here the code involved
route in module config:
'activities' => array(
'type' => 'segment',
'options' => array(
'route' => '/activities[/:id][/:action][.:formatter]',
'defaults' => array(
'controller' => 'activities'
),
'constraints' => array(
'formatter' => '[a-zA-Z0-9_-]*',
'id' => '[0-9_-]*'
),
),
),
Head of controller:
namespace Clock\Controller;
use Zend\Mvc\Controller\AbstractRestfulController;
use Zend\Mvc\MvcEvent;
use Zend\View\Model\ViewModel;
use Zend\Form\Annotation\AnnotationBuilder;
use Zend\Form;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityManager;
use Doctrine\ORM\EntityRepository;
use Clock\Entity\Activity;
use \Clock\Entity\Project;
Wich contains the get method:
public function get($id)
{
$entity = $this->getRepository()->find($id);
$form = $this->buildForm(new Activity());
#$form->setAttribute('action', $this->url()->fromRoute("activities", array('action' => 'update')));
$form->setAttribute('action', "/activities/$id/update");
$form->bind($entity);
return array(
"activities" => $entity,
"form" => $form
);
}
That feeds this view:
<h3>Edit activity</h3>
<div>
<?php echo $this->form()->openTag($form);?>
<?php echo $this->formSelect($form->get("project"));?><br>
<?php echo $this->formInput($form->get("duration"));?><br>
<?php echo $this->formInput($form->get("description"));?><br>
<input type="submit" value="save changes" />
<?php echo $this->form()->closeTag($form);?>
</div>
After sending it, I expect update method in activities to take control, but I get:
A 404 error occurred
Page not found.
The requested controller was unable to dispatch the request.
Controller:
activities
EDIT:#DrBeza
This is what i get, that i think (not a master in routes) is right:
Zend\Mvc\Router\Http\RouteMatch Object
(
[length:protected] => 21
[params:protected] => Array
(
[controller] => activities
[id] => 30
[action] => update
)
[matchedRouteName:protected] => activities
)
--
That's it.
Any help?

Answer 1

Quick Fix
The RouteMatch object tries to dispatch ActivitiesController::updateAction but you have defined ActivitiesController::update
That's due to you using a Restful Controller. the Controller::update-Method is specifically tied to PUT-Requests. You need to define an extra method to handle updates via POST-Requests.
I suggest you define ActivitiesController::updateAction, make clear in the docblock it is meant to handle POST-Update requests and refactor both ::updateAction and ::update to share as much common helper-methods as possible for a fast solution.
Common URI Structur information
As a nice information to have when you start developing RESTful applications/APIs:
The ruby community suggests the following url-structure for your resources:
# These are restful
/resource GET (lists) | POST (creates)
/resource/:id PUT (updates) | DELETE (deletes)
# these are just helpers, not restful, and may accept POST too.
/resource/new GET (shows the create-form), POST
/resource/:id/edit GET (shows the update-form), POST
Detailed Problem Analysis
A restful update will be sent by an consumer via PUT, but browsers sending HTML-forms may only send GET or POST requests. You should never use GET to create something. So you have to use POST in a forms-context.
Looking at the problem from an architectural perspective a multitude of possibilities emerge, depending on how big your application is.
For a small application, tight integration (formhandling and API handling in the controller) apply best.
Getting bigger you may want to split up API-Controllers (only restful actions) from Helper-Controllers (form, website handling) which talk to your API-Controllers
Being big (multitude of API-Users) you will want to have dedicated API Servers and dedicated Website Servers (independent applications!). In this case your website will consume the API serverside (thats what twitter is doing). API Servers and Website Servers still may share libraries (for filtering, utilities).
Code Sample
As an educational example I made an gist to show how such a controller could look like in principle. This controller is a) untested b) not production ready and c) only marginally configurable.
For your special interest here two excerpts about updating:
/* the restful method, defined in AbstractRestfulController */
public function update($id, $data)
{
$response = $this->getResponse();
if ( ! $this->getService()->has($id) )
{
return $this->notFoundAction();
}
$form = $this->getEditForm();
$form->setData($data);
if ( ! $form->isValid() )
{
$response->setStatusCode(self::FORM_INVALID_STATUSCODE);
return [ 'errors' => $form->getMessages() ];
}
$data = $form->getData(); // you want the filtered & validated data from the form, not the raw data from the request.
$status = $this->getService()->update($id, $data);
if ( ! $status )
{
$response->setStatusCode(self::SERVERSIDE_ERROR_STATUSCODE);
return [ 'errors' => [self::SERVERSIDE_ERROR_MESSAGE] ];
}
// if everything went smooth, we just return the new representation of the entity.
return $this->get($id);
}
and the editAction which satisfies browser-requests:
public function editAction()
{
/*
* basically the same as the newAction
* differences:
* - first fetch the data from the service
* - prepopulate the form
*/
$id = $this->params('id', false);
$dataExists = $this->getService()->has($id);
if ( ! $dataExists )
{
$this->flashMessenger()->addErrorMessage("No entity with {$id} is known");
return $this->notFoundAction();
}
$request = $this->getRequest();
$form = $this->getEditForm();
$data = $this->getService()->get($id);
if ( ! $request->isPost() )
{
$form->populateValues($data);
return ['form' => $form];
}
$this->update($id, $request->getPost()->toArray());
$response = $this->getResponse();
if ( ! $response->isSuccess() )
{
return [ 'form' => $form ];
}
$this->flashMessenger()->addSuccessMessage('Entity changed successfully');
return $this->redirect()->toRoute($this->routeIdentifiers['entity-changed']);
}

Answer 2

That error message suggests the dispatch process is unable to find the requested controller action and therefore using notFoundAction().
I would check the route matched and make sure the values are as expected. You can do this by adding the following into your module's onBootstrap() method:
$e->getApplication()->getEventManager()->attach('route', function($event) {
var_dump($event->getRouteMatch());
exit;
});