dealing with unidentifiable mime types

[Squiggles]

Hi all,

I came across this problem while trying to create an upload system for my project. I was trying to create a file upload filtering system that screened every file being transferred using their mime types. Then I came across a zip file that didn't have a mime type ID. Although in the system I'm accepting zipped files as files that can be uploaded, the system rejects it, because no mime type is identified (using $_FILES).

Any recommendations for a workaround on this problem? should I relax the restrictions and use the file extensions instead? Wouldn't file extension approaches compromise the system, if ever?

Thanks in advance. 🙂

[Weedpacket]

Using the MIME type is just as likely to compromise the system as file extensions and for exactly the same reason.

If you want to be sure that a file is a ZIP file you have to look at the file. You could use [man]mime_content_type[/man] to examine the uploaded file, and provide you with a suitable MIME type for further processing.