Handling File Uploads with PHP

This is a minimalistic guide on how to handle file uploads using PHP and XHTML forms. Prerequisites are basic XHTML and PHP skills.

Step 1: Creating an XHTML form

A form needs to be created through which a user can select the file that needs to be uploaded and pass it on to the PHP script which uploads the file. It's a very simple form using the "input type=file" attribute.

<form enctype="multipart/form-data" action="__URL__" method="POST"> <!-- MAX_FILE_SIZE must precede the file input field --> <input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="30000" /> <!-- Name of input element determines name in $_FILES array --> Send this file: <input name="userfile" type="file" /> <input type="submit" value="Send File" /> </form>

Step 2: Processing the upload

Now comes the PHP part. The approach I use here is to make use of the move_uploaded_file()^[1] and the global $_FILES variable.

<?php // In PHP versions earlier than 4.1.0, $HTTP_POST_FILES should be used instead // of $_FILES. $uploaddir = '/var/www/uploads/'; $uploadfile = $uploaddir . basename($_FILES['userfile']['name']); echo '<pre>'; if ( is_uploaded_file($_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name']) && move_uploaded_file($_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'], $uploadfile) ){ echo 'File is valid, and was successfully uploaded.'; } else { echo 'Possible file upload attack!'; } echo 'Here is some more debugging info:'; print_r($_FILES); print '</pre>'; ?>

Notes

• Provide your file with sufficient permissions, ie. the requisite write permissions in your operating system
• Modify the $uploaddir variable suitably to point to the writable folder where you want to save the uploaded files

References

[1] PHP Documentation

© Copyright Srirangan, 2005-2007

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