File upload problem

Anon

I'm working on a website which allows artists to upload scans of their work into an online gallery.

I have created an HTML form where they enter details of their work, title, size, media etc which has a file field for the image.

Some of the text fields are "required" with a PHP script to check if they have entered data. All works well if they get everything right first time. The picture uploads correctly to a directory on the server.

If they make a mistake in one of the text fields, I have the form redraw, using the existing variables to populate the fields in the form so the user does not have to enter all of the data again.

However this technique does not work for the file field. To avoid the user having to select a file again, I tried storing $file, $file_name, and $file_size as hidden fields. But when the script tries to upload the file to the server I get an error message saying that the tmp file cannot be found.

Has anyone found a way round this problem?

Any help would be most grtaefully received!

Anon

i did some research on this myself, but i couldn't find anything, it seems that php deletes the temp file once you leave the current page, i did not end up trying this, but try storing the file path itself, don't store the filesize or anything else, but store the path to the file, then when they reload, the it should look for the original file, not the temp file... -g

Anon

Why don't you use javascript to test weither the fields are empty or not ? this could prevent you from redrawing the form and then to store datas and have your php-bug.

is this helped you ?

Anon

judging by your site, you probably want to store them in a database, i was having the same problem with also an image site, but on thing that hepls is the binary data article found on this site, that code handles the stuff perfectly, just go under columns and search for binary, hope that helps.

Anon

Thanks for all your help on this one. What I decided to do in the end was to break the submission process down into two parts. First the artist enters the details of his work, then he/she is presented with the image upload form.

This may seem like a cop-out, skirting round the problem rather than solving it, but it was a simpler solution, and it allowed me to offer the user other options (like sending their pictures by mail if they don't own a scanner) more easily.

Also it could be argued that from a useability point of view ,breaking the submission task down into shorter, more manageable chunks was the right thing to do.

Thanks again all.

Anon

Fair enough with your solution, but I just thought I'd share why it doesn't work:

You CAN'T populate the value of a file field with anything, because this is a security breach. You just can't do it in any way shape of form. For example, you could put anything in there, such as passwords.txt or what every might be private on someones computer. Make the field hidden and when they press submit, you have a copy of there stuff. Not good for them at all, so its not allowed.

The workaround (or better way even) would be to use javascript to validate the form, thus avoiding a redraw.

Hope this helps and made sense.
Andrew