What is the least ugly way to force Backbone.sync updates to use POST instead of PUT?

Question

Some of my Backbone models should always use POST, instead of POST for create and PUT for update. The server I persist these models to is capable of supporting all other ve

Answer 1

Short and Sweet is put this on Top

Backbone.emulateHTTP = true;

This will use Get for Pull and Post for All pushes (read Create, Update, Delete)

Answer 2

the way I've done it is to override sync() thusly

Models.Thing = Backbone.Model.extend({
    initialize: function() {
        this.url = "/api/thing/" + this.id;
    },
    sync: function(method, model, options) {
        if (method === "read") method = "create";    // turns GET into POST
        return Backbone.sync(method, model, options);
    },
    defaults: {
        ...

Answer 3

I used a modification of Andres' answer and instead of havivng to remember to pass the option { type: 'post' } everywhere that I call .save() I instead just replaced the save function on the model to have it always add that option then call the base implementation. It felt cleaner...

module.exports = Backbone.Model.extend({
  idAttribute: 'identifier',
  urlRoot: config.publicEndpoint,

  save: function (attributes, options) {
    // because the 'identifier' field is filled in by the user, Backbone thinks this model is never new. This causes it to always 'put' instead of 'post' on save.
    // overriding save here to always pass the option use post as the HTTP action.
    options = _.extend(options || {}, { type: 'post' });
    return Backbone.Model.prototype.save.call(this, attributes, options);
  }
});

Answer 4

add a sync(method, model, [options]) directly to your models you need to override.

YourModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
  sync: function(method, model, options) {
    //perform the ajax call stuff
  }
}

Here's some more information: http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/#Sync

Answer 5

For anyone who needs to force a POST/PUT request on the instance directly:

thing = new ModelThing({ id: 1 });
thing.save({}, { // options
    type: 'post' // or put, whatever you need
})