DELETE request, react + flux + rails - ruby-on-rails

Question

I want to create a simple twitter_clone. Now I'm trying to add a feature to be able to unfollow a user.
What I've done until now:
User can follow other user (I did it through Flux pattern)
I've done it this way:
followUser(userId){
$.post("/followers", {user_id: userId})
.success(rawFollower => ServerActions.receivedOneFollower(rawFollower))
.error(error => console.log(error));
},
It sends a POST to /followers and a USER STORE is fetching this data to update itself.
Now I'm looking for the way how to delete it. I've tried to do it by:
unfollowUser(userId){
console.log ("API.unfollowUser");
$.delete("/followers", {user_id: userId})
.success(unfollowUser => ServerActions.removedOneFollower(unfollowUser))
.error(error => console.log(error));
}
but it doesn't work. I've received an error:
Uncaught TypeError: $.delete is not a function
Basically, I try to remove one row from database and accordingly json connected with it and Later to update a STORE (delete this json from array which I use to determine a state of React Element)
This is destroy action from Rails followers controller:
def destroy
follower = Follower.find(user_id: params[:user_id],
followed_by: current_user.id)
follower.destroy
end
Could someone help me?

Answer 1

As you can see, the error you're getting is a Javascript error, not a Rails error.
There's no $.delete method for jQuery. Instead, you have to use the $.ajax one and specify the HTTP method, like so:
$.ajax({
url: '/followers',
method: 'DELETE',
data: { user_id: userId }
}).done(unfollowUser => ServerActions.removedOneFollower(unfollowUser))
.fail(error => console.log(error))
However, this might also fail because jQuery may not support sending data with a DELETE request, and that makes sense.
If you're using Rails and trying to be RESTful, you shouldn't be sending a DELETE request like this:
DELETE /followers
{ user_id: userId }
Rather, you should send a DELETE request like this:
DELETE /followers/:user_id
So to modify the code, it becomes like this:
$.ajax({
url: '/followers/' + userId ,
method: 'DELETE',
}).done(unfollowUser => ServerActions.removedOneFollower(unfollowUser))
.fail(error => console.log(error))
I haven't tried any of the code above, but It Should Just Work (TM).