[RESOLVED] PHotograph Upload Help

QuizToon

Hi all

Big time newbie and grade A thicko here asking nicely for a little help and explanation.

Iwant to try and learn php and mysql but i seem to be finding conflicting info online which really confuses me.

I want to create a little website which is for the family to display some photographs. Now I have read that it is better not to keep the photos in the actual database but to store a link to the folder in which the photo is saved. I understand that bit, what i dont understand is how, by using a form, you tell the picture to be stored in the selected folder and how you get the link for that photo into the database.

Of course once that is done how do you get the pictures to display without any further coding. What I mean by that is if i naVigate to http://www.mywebspace.com/index.php or html whichever it is supposed to be, how does the photo that my mum who lives on the other side of the world from me, get displayed. Also would it list all the photos on the page or just the last one posted. 😕

I hope someone understands all this and can help me out by showing and explaining the bit of coding or coUld even point me to a tutorial which deals with this specific request.

I understand if this is all a bit much for someone to take one, I am here in hope really to glean info from someone more knowledgable than me (wouldnt take much) 🙂

Thanks in advance

Graham

dalecosp

QuizToon wrote:
Hi all

Big time newbie and grade A thicko here asking nicely for a little help and explanation.

OK.

Iwant to try and learn php and mysql but i seem to be finding conflicting info online which really confuses me.

Well, since PHP is a language, there are bound to be multiple ways to skin the cat, and worldwide, you'll expect some variance in how things are done. Some are sub-optimal, some downright trash/wrong, and there can even be variations on "best practice."

I want to create a little website which is for the family to display some photographs.

One good precept might be, "don't reinvent the wheel". FlickR, Gallery (PHP app), mywebspace, etc. might work for this.

Now I have read that it is better not to keep the photos in the actual database but to store a link to the folder in which the photo is saved. I understand that bit, what i dont understand is how, by using a form, you tell the picture to be stored in the selected folder and how you get the link for that photo into the database.

You've read this?

Of course once that is done how do you get the pictures to display without any further coding.

You don't. Nothing happens without code.

What I mean by that is if i naVigate to http://www.mywebspace.com/index.php or html whichever it is supposed to be, how does the photo that my mum who lives on the other side of the world from me, get displayed.

Well, neither at that URI, as it's a "for sale" domain. 😉

Have you done any PHP work before? Programmed in any language?

Again, maybe you should just install "mywebspace" ... see www.mywebspace.org

Also would it list all the photos on the page or just the last one posted. 😕

Depends on how it's written, and possibly on how it's configured (depending, of course, on how it's written.)

Are you quite confused now? 😃

I'm not deliberately trying to be confusing. Briefly, you create an HTML form with a special "enctype" attribute, you create a "handler script" that reads the form, and uses PHP to write the text data to a database running on the server or a nearby server and handles the "file upload" via HTTP POST as describe in the link I gave from php.net. The file upload code sticks the POSTed pic (or whatever file) in a temporary location, then moves it to a location in which the webserver software has write permission. During this "move" process, you can change the name to match the name that you told the database this file would have.

The last thing you need is a "display" page that reads from the database and generates the necessary HTML to create whatever kind of display you wish for the data in the database and in the "file"/"pic" folder.[/quote]I hope someone understands all this and can help me out by showing and explaining the bit of coding or coUld even point me to a tutorial which deals with this specific request.[/quote]Well, the manual bit above is good. Try "PHP file uploads tutorial" at google.com, or search.yahoo.com, etc. Might get some good stuff.

I understand if this is all a bit much for someone to take one, I am here in hope really to glean info from someone more knowledgable than me (wouldnt take much) 🙂

Thanks in advance

You're welcome.

QuizToon

I have now followed the tutorials as you suggested and although i understand the principle of it all, I still cant get the damn thing to work.

I copied the source code and changedthe directory path as instructed and set up the config file with my database name etc and when i hit submit on the form i get this following error

Warning: move_uploaded_file(/home/public_html/upload/pictures/earth.gif): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/sites/grap.co.uk/public_html/upload/upload3.php on line 36

Warning: move_uploaded_file(): Unable to move '/tmp/phpLCghqb' to '/home/public_html/upload/pictures/earth.gif' in /home/sites/grap.co.uk/public_html/upload/upload3.php on line 36
Error uploading file

the file i saved has the code as follows:
<html>
<head>
<title>Upload File To MySQL Database</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<style type="text/css">

</style>
</head>

<body>
<?
// you can change this to any directory you want
// as long as php can write to it
$uploadDir = '/home/public_html/upload/pictures/';

if(isset($POST['upload']))
{
$fileName = $FILES['userfile']['name'];
$tmpName = $FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'];
$fileSize = $FILES['userfile']['size'];
$fileType = $_FILES['userfile']['type'];

// the files will be saved in filePath  
$filePath = $uploadDir . $fileName; 

// move the files to the specified directory 
// if the upload directory is not writable or 
// something else went wrong $result will be false 
$result    = move_uploaded_file($tmpName, $filePath); 
if (!$result) { 
    echo "Error uploading file"; 
    exit; 
} 

include 'library/config.php'; 
include 'library/opendb.php'; 

if(!get_magic_quotes_gpc()) 
{ 
    $fileName  = addslashes($fileName); 
    $filePath  = addslashes($filePath); 
}   

$query = "INSERT INTO upload2 (name, size, type, path ) ". 
         "VALUES ('$fileName', '$fileSize', '$fileType', '$filePath')"; 

mysql_query($query) or die('Error, query failed : ' . mysql_error());                     

include 'library/closedb.php'; 

echo "<br>File uploaded<br>";

}

?>
<form action="" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="uploadform">
<table width="350" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="box">
<tr>

<td width="246"><input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="2000000"><input name="userfile" type="file" class="box" id="userfile">
</td>
<td width="80"><input name="upload" type="submit" class="box" id="upload" value=" Upload "></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>
</html>

I have changed the CHMOD to 777 for my pictures directory .

I am obviously missing something obvious or i have put the path to my save drectory incorrectly.

Someone please put me out of my misery

🙂

dalecosp

You're > 90% of the way there. Debugging is a headache, but it's also a learning process. So, take heart! A very nice thing about PHP, as opposed to, say, the Windows operating system, is that error messages are meaningful. Check that:

"/tmp" exists, and its permissions are web-server writable.
"/home/public_html/upload/pictures/" exists, and its permissions are web-server writable.

Also, check the values of "file_uploads" and "upload_tmp_dir" in php.ini.

(If you don't have access to php.ini, you can use [man]ini_get/man like so:

<?php

$tmpdir=ini_get("upload_tmp_dir");
$allowed=ini_get("file_uploads");

echo "
File uploads status: $allowed
The temp dir is $tmpdir

";

?>

If the "tmpdir" part comes up blank, don't worry, the system default is used if the variable is not assigned in php.ini. It appears you're on a UNIX-like or Linux system, so just check into "tmp" as I mentioned above....

If all that fails, it may also be necessary to fiddle with the permissions of the parent directory (in this case, /home/public_html/upload ); post back here and let us know.

HTH!

QuizToon

Thanks again

I got it working I didnt have the path correct to my folder, i had missed the sites bit out of the path.

'/home/public_html/upload/pictures/'

should have been

'/home/sites/webaddress/public_html/upload/pictures/'

Learned loads over the past couple of days.

Now all I need to do is work out how to get them back out and display on the page.

Also want to work out how to include a comments box for the upload so that i can call the whole lot down, pictures and comments.

Hopefully this wont be as tricky as I found the uploading bit

Thanks Again

dalecosp

QuizToon wrote:
Thanks again

I got it working I didnt have the path correct to my folder, i had missed the sites bit out of the path.

'/home/public_html/upload/pictures/'

should have been

'/home/sites/webaddress/public_html/upload/pictures/'

Heh. It's often something like that; we're all a tad "thick", as you say it, at times....

Learned loads over the past couple of days.

Now all I need to do is work out how to get them back out and display on the page.

Also want to work out how to include a comments box for the upload so that i can call the whole lot down, pictures and comments.

Hopefully this wont be as tricky as I found the uploading bit

Thanks Again

Nice thing about PHP, you can learn a lot in a "couple of days". Also, the further you go with it, the easier some (more basic) things become.

Good luck!

QuizToon

still cant work out or find a tutorial to show how to get the link from the database and display it on the page though.

dalecosp

Probably an issue for another thread ....