[RESOLVED] Filesize of a text area

ddrfreek

Back again with another (hopefully) simple question. So I have a script to upload text from a text area, and part of the script is supposed to check the filesize against a maximum to make sure it's not too big. I can't figure out how to get the filesize of the text without actually uploading the file first. Is size stored anywhere automatically like with the $_FILE array, or can I get it using the filesize function, or something? Thanks in advance.

NogDog

If it's a textarea, then it's not uploading a file. But you can get the number of characters submitted by using the [man]strlen/man function against the applicable $_POST element.

ddrfreek

Ok, so strlen() will basically be just as useful as having the filesize? Thanks!

nrg_alpha

strlen() will give you the length of characters found the $_POST element.. Are we correct in assuming that this is what you are looking for?

ddrfreek

Well I want to get whatever the filesize of the txt file would be when I save it, before I save it. The textarea is simply being written to a txt file, so the length would be relatively close to the filesize on the server in bytes. Although not exactly the same, it suits my needs just as well. I'll mark it resolved.

nrg_alpha

Then I suppose filesize() is what you are looking for?

ddrfreek

Well that's the concept I was going for, but the $_POST data doesn't contain any file, it's just a string from a textarea that's going to be saved to a file, once I can validate that it's not too large.

nrg_alpha

Oh right.. Forgot that it checks a file which contains something.. not a string pending evaluation.

Well, the closest thing I could find while googling for this is:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum88/9383.htm

which seems to reference mb_strlen():
http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.mb-strlen.php

But when I tested this function on a string, I got an error ('Fatal error: Call to undefined function mb_strlen()'), so I guess I don't have the proper installation to support this.. but perhaps you or your webhost does?

Cheers,

NRG