<p>I would like to make my application somewhat REST compliant.  I am using Rails on the backend and <a href="https://developers.google.com/web-toolkit/" rel="noreferrer">GWT</a> on the frontend.  I would like to do updates and deletes.  I realize I can do something like mydomain.com/:id/delete (GET) and accomplish the same thing.  However, as I stated previously, I would like to have a REST compliant backend.  Thus, I want to do mydomain.com/:id (DELETE) and have it implicitly call my delete method.</p>

<p>Now, it's my understanding that if a browser (my browser is GWT RequestBuilder) doesn't support DELETE/GET, Rails somehow accomplishes this task with a POST and some other url parameter.  So, how can I accomplish this with a GWT RequestBuilder?</p>

Rails does this with hidden attributes. The easiest way to figure this out would be to create a new rails application, generate a scaffold and have a look at the HTML in a browser.
Try this:
```
```
rails jp
cd jp
./script/generate scaffold RequestBuilder name:string
rake db:migrate
./script/server
```
```
Then navigate to
http://localhost:3000/request_builders
, click on New and have a look at the HTML. You'll see something like:
```
```
<form action="/request_builders" class="new_request_builder" 
  id="new_request_builder" method="post">
  <div style="margin:0;padding:0">
    <input name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="e76..." />
  </div>
```
```
This is a creation, method is POST. Enter a name, save then Edit:
```
```
<form action="/request_builders/1" class="edit_request_builder" 
  id="edit_request_builder_1" method="post">
  <div style="margin:0;padding:0">
    <input name="_method" type="hidden" value="put" />
    <input name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="e76..." />
  </div>
```
```
Of course the form is sent with POST, but Rails hads a hidden field to simulate a PUT request. Same for deletion, but the scaffold will do it with a bit of Javascript:
```
```
var m = document.createElement('input'); 
m.setAttribute('type', 'hidden'); 
m.setAttribute('name', '_method'); 
m.setAttribute('value', 'delete');
```
```
To have this work with another front-end, you'll have to both:
Use the same style URL such as /request_builders/1 (RESTful URLs)
Include the hidden fields (Rails trick)