is HTTP_POST_FILES not an array?

Anon

hi,

ran into a problem with HTTP_POST_FILES. i see that only two files at a maximum are uploaded? i am on a windows 98 platform with php4.0.4pl1. i figured out that this is actually because for me, "sizeof($HTTP_POST_FILES)" always returns the value 1. why is this? is http_post_files not a proper array? i have also tried the count() function but even that always returns 1.

thanks/erick

mithril

Erick,

Well....... technically what PHP calls arrays are not really arrays since real arrays can only contain one datatype (int, char, string, etc.). They are really structures since they can hold different datatypes. However, in this case that's spliting hairs and it doesn't answer your question🙂 The $HTTP_POST_FILES var is a proper array, to be more specific it's a proper 2-dimensional array (by default). The four property key's it contains are in the second tier, which is why sizeof() or count() will always return a value of one. BTW, the count returned by both those functions starts at 1, not 0. Now let's assume your form's file element is named "file", for example. The resulting $HTTP_POST_FILES array will have the following structure:

$HTTP_POST_FILES[file][name]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file][type]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file][tmp_name]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file][size]

Since the form field name is always used as the first tier key, this allows for processing of multiple file elements in a form.

eg.
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file][name]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file][type]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file][tmp_name]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file][size]

$HTTP_POST_FILES[file2][name]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file2][type]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file2][tmp_name]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[file2][size]

Things get a bit more confusing if you setup your form field as an array (to allow for easier batch data validation, variable passing, etc.). Let's assume that your form's elements are actually creating an array called myForm, and your file element is myForm[file]. In this case the $HTTP_POST_FILES array becomes a 3-dimensional array like so:

$HTTP_POST_FILES[myForm][file][name]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[myForm][file][type]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[myForm][file][tmp_name]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[myForm][file][size]

You can keep expanding out this model ad nosium, but hopefully the above is enough to let you catch my drift. HTH!!

Cheers,

Geoff A. Virgo

Anon

Thanks geoff for your response, but i think thats exactly what i am doing. i have form as follows:

<input type="file" name="doc[]">
<input type="file" name="doc[]">
<input type="file" name="doc[]">

and i am accessing them in this fasion:

--------------- START CODE ------------------

reset ($HTTP_POST_FILES);
for ($ctr = 0; $ctr <= count($HTTP_POST_FILES); $ctr++)
{

    $file           = $HTTP_POST_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'][$ctr];
    $file_name      = "";

    // Is it a valid file upload?
    if (is_uploaded_file($file))
    {

        $file_name      = strtolower($HTTP_POST_FILES['userfile']['name'][$ctr]);
        $file_type      = $HTTP_POST_FILES['userfile']['type'][$ctr];
        $file_size      = $HTTP_POST_FILES['userfile']['size'][$ctr];

        // D E B U G
        echo "<b>File     </b>: $file <br>";
        echo "<b>File name</b>: $file_name <br>";
        echo "<b>File type</b>: $file_type <br>" ;
        echo "<b>File size</b>: $file_size <p>" ;

    // End of chekcing valid file upload
    }

// End of files loop
}

--------------- END CODE ------------------

So what do you think is the problem? In the above code,

count($HTTP_POST_FILES)

..always gives 1.

Why??

Thanks!

mithril

Erick,

First off, I made a mistake in my post of last night. The 3-dimensional $HTTP_POST_FILES array should have looked like this:

$HTTP_POST_FILES[myForm][name][file]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[myForm][type][file]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[myForm][tmp_name][file]
$HTTP_POST_FILES[myForm][size][file]

Typing when half asleep can produce silly results🙂 Now, to try and swer your question. When you call count($HTTP_POST_FILES) it is counting the number of different 1st tier array elements. Since you've set your form's file fields up as an array there is only one 1st tier element, the name of the array variable (ie. "doc"), so you only get a count of one. To make the loop in your example work properly, try this:

for ($ctr = 0; $ctr <= count($HTTP_POST_FILES[doc][name]); $ctr++)

This should get the count of the 3rd array tier (the one with all the submitted form info) and make the loop iterate that many times. The other problems I see in your posted code snippet are all the lines which read:

$HTTP_POST_FILES['userfile']

You've set your form fields up to fill an array called "doc" so you must either change the form fields array to "userfile[]" or change "$HTTP_POST_FILES['userfile']" to "$HTTP_POST_FILES['doc']" for the code inside the loop to function properly. As it stands now, you're checking for uploaded files on an empty variable. Even if that test passed, the rest are also empty var's so you'd get no output. HTH,

Cheers,

Geoff A. Virgo