&quot;upload status&quot; tip

"upload status" tip

freebie

I figured out something tonight that I thought I'd share.
I wanted to be able to give a user feedback as to the amount of bytes uploaded (reloading every 10 seconds) for large file uploads.

My solution first involves changing the tmp upload directory, so this might not be applicable to all, since you are not able to set this using .htaccess or ini_set (though you can ask your host to set this at the httpd.conf level - and maybe they already have). this way, the only thing this directory will contain is the current uploading file (plus the . and .. on unix)

The next step is to create a javascript popup (called as the first thing in the javascript onSubmit event handler for a form). The popup contains the following php page (additional notes below)

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Upload Status</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10">
</head>

<body>
Upload Status:<br>
<?php
$dir='/tmp/php';
if (is_dir($dir)) {
$dh = opendir($dir);
while(false!==($filename=readdir($dh))){
$fileArray[]=$filename;
}
if(count($fileArray)==3){ // 3 because of the . and .. files and the current uploading tmp file
sort($fileArray);
echo "Received: " . filesize("/tmp/php/".$fileArray[2]);
}elseif(count($fileArray)==2){ // not yet started uploading
echo "initializing upload ...";
}else{
echo "upload status: Unavailable<br>";
echo "reason: more than 1 upload in progress<br>";
echo "note: large files may take 30 minutes to upload";
}
}
?>
</body>
</html>

This checks to see if the file has started uploading yet. If not, it outputs "initiliazing upload". There's a meta refresh to refresh the popup every 10 seconds. Upon the first refresh, the file will have started uploading and the file size will be displayed (then every 10 seconds, it will refresh and show the new size). If there happen to be 2 file uploads in progress at one time, it simply echos that the upload status can't be determined.

I'm sure this can be enhanced in respect to what happens when the file has finished uploading, I just haven't done that at this point.

freebie

Here's an improved version of the code for the popup status window.

<?php
// note: this was written for *nix based installations, windows will need some adjusting
$dir='/tmp/php';
$FinishedUploading=false;
if(isset($_GET['temp'])){ // since $_GET['temp'] is set, we know the file upload has started.
	 if(file_exists($dir."/".$_GET['temp'])){ // temp file exists, thus the file is still uploading.
 		$Message="Receiving data ... <br>";
		$Message.= "Received: ". floor(filesize($dir."/".$_GET['temp'])/1000). " Kb";
	 }else{  // file upload has completed and the temp file was deleted from the temp directory
   		$Message= "Finished Uploading";
		$FinishedUploading=true; // use this to stop the refreshing (ie, don't write the meta tag)
    }
}else{ // file has not starting uploading yet
	   // OR this is the first refresh since the file started uploading
	$dh  = opendir($dir);
	while(false!==($filename=readdir($dh))){
		$fileArray[]=$filename;
	} 

if(count($fileArray)==2){ // not yet started uploading (since /tmp/php only contains . and ..)
	$Message= "initializing upload ...";
}elseif(count($fileArray)==3){// upload file detected, so redirect and include the tmp filename
	sort($fileArray);
	header("Location: $PHP_SELF?temp=".$fileArray[2]);
	exit;
}elseif(count($fileArray)>3){ // more than 1 file upload in progress, so unable to determine
	$Message= "upload status: Unavailable<br>";
	$Message.= "reason: more than 1 upload in progress<br>";
	$Message.= "note: large files may take 30 minutes to upload";	
}
}
?>


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Upload Status</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<?php
	if(!$FinishedUploading){
?>
	<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5"> 
<?php
	}
?>
</head>

<body bgcolor='#eeeeee'>
<u>Upload Status:</u><br>
<?php
echo $Message;
?>
</body>
</html>

note that this version handles the file upload completion by displaying a "file upload complete" message and no longer refreshing. This version also does a better job at preventing any problems when more than 1 file is being uploaded (ie 2 users are both uploading files) because upon detecting the file, it appends a query string value containing the temp file name (and thus if a second user starts a file upload, it won't interfere with the first users display). The second user will still get the "unavailable" message though (something that I'm sure that could be handled in some way (such as by interacting with a database to store currently uploading tmp filenames that are being uploaded by other users and then not check those files in the file count - or something like that)...

freebie

One last note, and something I'm going to do, is that this could be done as an iframe embedded in the form page, rather than as a popup window, thus giving a slightly nicer UI

tester2

Combine it all with the fileSize that you can retrieve first
with javascript (95% of browsers support it), send that
to the popup, and this is what you get:

works like a charm in production site now.

if fileSize is not supported, then use alternative above (thread
starter) or something else.......(its in dutch, but resterende tijd
means remaining time, nog te ontvangen means remaining).

When the upload is done, the popup closes itself automatically and shows thumbnail etc.
Hours tested, fully working, unlike buggy megaupload.
only downside: you have to be able to get to the upload-temp-dir,
but loads of providers support it by f.e. putting php.ini in
the map (overrules) or changing htaccess. good luck!