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PHP Script Tips - Uploading Files to Web Servers Home >> FAQs/Tutorials >> PHP Script
Tutorials and Tips >> Index PHP Script Tips -
Uploading Files to Web Servers By: FYICenter.com Part: 1 2 3 A collection of 12 tips on
uploading files with PHP pages. Clear explanations and tutorial exercises
are provided on creating file upload HTML tags, setting encoding type on
HTML forms, getting uploaded file information, storing uploaded file in
database. Topics included in this collections: What Is File Upload? Which
HTML Tag Allows Users to Specify a File for Uploading? How To Write the
FORM Tag Correctly for Uploading Files? How To Get the Uploaded File
Information in the Receiving Script? How To Process the Uploaded Files?
How To Move Uploaded Files To Permanent Directory? How To Detect File
Uploading Errors? Why Do You Need to Filter Out Empty Files? How To Create
a Table To Store Files? How To Uploaded Files to a Table? What Are the File
Upload Settings in Configuration File? How To Get the Technical
Specifications for File Upload? What Is File Upload? File upload is Web
page function which allows visitor to specify a file on the browser's
system and submit it to the Web server. This is a very useful function for
many interactive Web sites. Some examples are: Web base email systems for
users to send attachments. Forums that allows user to submit pictures. Web
sites file managers for users to build their own Web pages. Which HTML Tag
Allows Users to Specify a File for Uploading? To present an input field on
your Web page to allow users to specify a local file to upload, you need to
use the <INPUT TYPE="FILE" ...> tag inside a <FORM ...> tag. The
<INPUT TYPE="FILE" ...> will be displayed as a text input field
followed by a button called "Browse...". Users can either enter the full
path name of a local file, or click Browse button to go through a dialog
box to select a file interactively. The following PHP code shows you a
good example of the file upload tag: <?php
print("<html><form>\n"); print("<input type=file>\n");
print("<input type=submit>\n"); print("</form></html>\n"); ?>
If you copy this script to PHP file and test it on your Web server, you
should see a file upload field. How To Write the FORM Tag Correctly for
Uploading Files? When users clicks the submit button, files specified in
the <INPUT TYPE=FILE...> will be transferred from the browser to the
Web server. This transferring (uploading) process is controlled by a
properly written <FORM...> tag as: <FORM ACTION=receiving.php
METHOD=post ENCTYPE=multipart/form-data> Note that you must specify METHOD
as "post" and ENCTYPE as "multipart/form-data" in order for the uploading
process to work. The following PHP code, called logo_upload.php, shows you
a complete FORM tag for file uploading: <?php print("<html><form
action=processing_uploaded_files.php" ." method=post
enctype=multipart/form-data>\n"); print("Please submit an image file a Web
site logo for" ." fyicenter.com:<br>\n"); print("<input type=file
name=fyicenter_logo><br>\n"); print("<input type=submit>\n");
print("</form></html>\n"); ?> How To Get the Uploaded File
Information in the Receiving Script? Once the Web server received the
uploaded file, it will call the PHP script specified in the form action
attribute to process them. This receiving PHP script can get the uploaded
file information through the predefined array called $_FILES. Uploaded
file information is organized in $_FILES as a two-dimensional array as:
$_FILES[$fieldName]['name'] - The Original file name on the browser
system. $_FILES[$fieldName]['type'] - The file type determined by the
browser. $_FILES[$fieldName]['size'] - The Number of bytes of the file
content. $_FILES[$fieldName]['tmp_name'] - The temporary filename of the
file in which the uploaded file was stored on the server.
$_FILES[$fieldName]['error'] - The error code associated with this file
upload. The $fieldName is the name used in the <INPUT TYPE=FILE,
NAME=fieldName>. How To Process the Uploaded Files? How to process the
uploaded files? The answer is really depending on your application. For
example: You can attached the outgoing emails, if the uploaded files are
email attachments. You can move them to user's Web page directory, if the
uploaded files are user's Web pages. You can move them to a permanent
directory and save the files names in the database, if the uploaded files
are articles to be published on the Web site. You can store them to
database tables, if you don't want store them as files. (Continued on next
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