NYCPHP Meetup

[Mitch Pirtle]

Greg Faber wrote:

> Good morning people,
> 
> Just a quick question, for which I'd like a quick answer.
> 
> When I wrote (uh... copy/pasted) my script to upload a file, I included 
> the usual safeguards they mention in all the books: check to see if 
> something is uploaded, verify file size != 0 and verify file type. Now, 
> let's say I want to be able to upload 5 files at a time, must I verify 
> every possible combination of uploaded/not-uploaded file or is there a 
> function out there that was made specifically to handle this? (if there 
> isn't I'll just bite the bullet and do it, I'm just thinking that this 
> is so common someone MUSt have done it before, right?)

I just dealt with this problem in the wee hours of last night - have a 
website that lets the client upload their entire database through one 
zipfile, as the six separate files were huge and it just seemed messy 
that way :)

With PEAR's HTML_QuickForm, you could create the entire shebang with the 
following code (apologies if I am being too verbose):

<?php
require_once 'HTML/QuickForm.php';
$form = new HTML_QuickForm('firstForm');

// create the form and it's required elements
$file =& $form->addElement('file', 'myfile1', 'Your datafile:');
$file =& $form->addElement('file', 'myfile2', 'Another datafile:');
$file =& $form->addElement('file', 'myfile3', 'And another:');
$file =& $form->addElement('file', 'myfile4', 'And another:');
$file =& $form->addElement('file', 'myfile5', 'And another:');
$form->addElement('submit', null, 'Send');
// this is the rule that makes them submit the file
$form->addRule('myfile', 'Required', 'uploadedfile', NULL, 'client');
$form->addRule('myfile', 'Required', 'uploadedfile', NULL, 'client');
$form->addRule('myfile', 'Required', 'uploadedfile', NULL, 'client');
$form->addRule('myfile', 'Required', 'uploadedfile', NULL, 'client');
$form->addRule('myfile', 'Required', 'uploadedfile', NULL, 'client');

// validate the form
if ($form->validate()) {
   /*
     form was validated, you got your files and can
     manipulate them just like normally-submitted files
   */
   print_r($_FILES['myfile1'];
   print_r($_FILES['myfile2'];
   print_r($_FILES['myfile3'];
   print_r($_FILES['myfile4'];
   print_r($_FILES['myfile5'];
} else {
   // nothing submitted, give them the form
   $form->display();
}

?>

The documentation for HTML_QuickForm is excellent, and inclues a 
QuickStart and an external link to a more detailed tutorial:

http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.html.html-quickform.php

I'd also like to mention that I just finished a review of "PHP 
Anthology, Volume I, Foundations" by Harry Fuecks (SitePoint) that 
tackles your problem with standard PHP coding style and using PEAR. 
Very comprehensive and useful.

-- Mitch