Understanding the $_Files superglobal.

mrPete

I am working through an example I found that imports Excel XML data into a database table. The following code:

<html>
<body>
<form enctype="multipart/form-data" 
  action="import_facilities.php" method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="2000000" />
  <table width="600">
  <tr>
  <td>Choose file:</td>
  <td><input type="file" name="file" /></td>
  <td><input type="submit" value="Upload" /></td>
  </tr>
  </table>
  </form>
  </body>
  </html>

submits the file to another php page that has the following line of code:

if ( $_FILES['file']['tmp_name'] )

I understand the conditional part, and I think I understand the "['file']" reference, but I do not understand the "['tmp_name']" part.

Will someone please help me understand this statement?

Thank you.

NogDog

Have you looked at this user manual page yet? http://www.php.net/manual/en/features.file-upload.post-method.php

I'm pretty sure it will answer your question, but if not, just let us know which part is still confusing you. 🙂

NogDog

PS: I'd much rather see that conditional statement as something like:

if ( ! empty($_FILES['file']['tmp_name']))

...in order to avoid any warnings if it's not defined for some reason.

mrPete

Thank you NogDog. I had been in the manual, but didn't see this. It definitely helps.

mrPete

And thanks for suggestion on my "if" syntax.

The light came on for me with regard to the $_Files question too, after reading through the link you sent. I should have dug deeper before raising the white flag. Thanks again.