Ember JS, Patch Record REST Adapter

Question

Is there a way with Ember JS to use the PATCH verb in order to partially update a record on the server (instead of PUT which will override the whole record).

Creating a record

Using POST which is all good.

var car = store.createRecord('car', {
  make: 'Honda',
  model: 'Civic'
});
car.save(); // => POST to '/cars'

Modifying a record

Always using PUT which is not ideal.

car.set('model', 'Accord')
car.save(); // => PUT to '/cars/{id}'

I would like to have the control over the HTTP verb used for saving.

Answer 1

you can use save() in ember which uses the PATCH verb. Records that already exist on the backend are updated using the HTTP PATCH verb.

store.findRecord('post', 1).then(function(post) {
  post.get('title'); // => "Rails is Omakase"

  post.set('title', 'A new post');

  post.save(); // => PATCH to '/posts/1'
});

look for more details here

Answer 2

There is a way to do it, but you'll have to do a bit of work. Specifically, you'll need to override the updateRecord method in the adapter. Modifying the default implementation, you should come up with something like this:

export default DS.RESTAdapter.extend({
    updateRecord(store, type, snapshot) {
        const payload = {};
        const changedAttributes = snapshot.changedAttributes();

        Object.keys(changedAttributes).forEach((attributeName) => {
            const newValue = changedAttributes[attributeName][1];
            // Do something with the new value and the payload
            // This will depend on what your server expects for a PATCH request
        });

        const id = snapshot.id;
        const url = this.buildURL(type.modelName, id, snapshot, 'updateRecord');

        return this.ajax(url, 'PATCH', payload);
    }
});

You'll have to dig into the Snapshot documentation a bit to generate the request payload, but it shouldn't be too difficult.