Some guy called one of my Snipplr submissions "crap" because I used if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST') instead of if ($_POST)
Checking the request method seems more correct to me because that's what I really want to do. Is there some operational difference between the two or is this just a code clarity issue?
Well, they don't do the same thing, really.
$_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] contains the request method (surprise).
$_POST contains any post data.
It's possible for a POST request to contain no POST data.
I check the request method — I actually never thought about testing the $_POST array. I check the required post fields, though. So an empty post request would give the user a lot of error messages - which makes sense to me.
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST') is the correct way, you can send a post request without any post data.
I used to check $_POST until I got into a trouble with larger POST data and uploaded files. There are configuration directives post_max_size and upload_max_filesize - if any of them is exceeded, $_POST array is not populated.
So the "safe way" is to check $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']. You still have to use isset() on every $_POST variable though, and it does not matter, whether you check or don't check $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'].
They are both correct. Personally I prefer your approach better for its verbosity but it's really down to personal preference.
Off hand, running if($_POST) would not throw an error - the $_POST array exists regardless if the request was sent with POST headers. An empty array is cast to false in a boolean check.
As long as I may need to access my PHP scripts with more than one method, what I do actually is:
if (in_array($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'],array("GET","POST","DELETE"))) {
// do wathever I do
}
It's really a 6 of one, a half-dozen of the other situation.
The only possible argument against your approach is $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST' may not be populated on certain web-servers/configuration, whereas the $_POST array will always exist in PHP4/PHP5 (and if it doesn't exist, you have bigger problems (-:)
They both work the same way, but $_POST should be used as it is cleaner. You can add isset() to it to check it exists.