Basic File Uploading Using PHP

Discussion

1. david

   @Binny: Great work!
2. Dave Thomas

   Greetings!

   I’m a big admirer of your site David, you always get the important code or meaning across without distracting filler. It’s great :)

   A couple of points regarding the above PHP upload script:

   i) $valid_file is never declared true, so I added the following just before the 'if($valid_file)'.

   else { $valid_file = true; }
   

   ii) I was unable to get it working with strtolower and the uploads/ directory but this worked for me:

   $currentdir = getcwd();
   $target = $currentdir .'/uploads/' . basename($_FILES['photo']['name']);
   move_uploaded_file($_FILES['photo']['tmp_name'], $target);
   

   Thanks again, have fun :D
• Shubham Rajdhar

  Dave,
  Thanks for your points man! 2nd point helped me big time!
• Mo Higgins

  This comment particularly was really helpful. Great blog article and great tips from the audience. Got the file upload working. Super cool!

  Anyone have any best practices for testing against malicious uploads or “fake” images?
3. hjhgjhgj

   //if they DID upload a file…
   if($_FILES[‘photo’][‘name’])
   {
   //if no errors…
   if(!$_FILES[‘photo’][‘error’])
   {
   //now is the time to modify the future file name and validate the file
   $new_file_name = strtolower($_FILES[‘photo’][‘tmp_name’]); //rename file
   if($_FILES[‘photo’][‘size’] > (1024000)) //can’t be larger than 1 MB
   {
   $valid_file = false;
   $message = ‘Oops! Your file\’s size is to large.’;
   }

   //if the file has passed the test
   if($valid_file)
   {
   //move it to where we want it to be
   move_uploaded_file($_FILES[‘photo’][‘tmp_name’], ‘uploads/’.$new_file_name);
   $message = ‘Congratulations! Your file was accepted.’;
   }
   }
   //if there is an error…
   else
   {
   //set that to be the returned message
   $message = ‘Ooops! Your upload triggered the following error: ‘.$_FILES[‘photo’][‘error’];
   }
   }

   //you get the following information for each file:
   $_FILES[‘field_name’][‘name’]
   $_FILES[‘field_name’][‘size’]
   $_FILES[‘field_name’][‘type’]
   $_FILES[‘field_name’][‘tmp_name’]
4. Bhavana

   $allowedExts = array(“jpg”, “jpeg”, “gif”, “png”);
   $extension = end(explode(“.”, $_FILES[“file”][“name”]));
   if ((($_FILES[“file”][“type”] == “image/gif”)
   || ($_FILES[“file”][“type”] == “image/jpeg”)
   || ($_FILES[“file”][“type”] == “image/png”)
   || ($_FILES[“file”][“type”] == “image/pjpeg”))
   && ($_FILES[“file”][“size”] 0)
   {
   $msg = “Error while upload!!! Return Code: ” . $_FILES[“file”][“error”];
   }
   else
   {
   $downloadspath = MAIN_PATH . “downloads/”;
   $filename = $_FILES[“file”][“name”];
   $filetype = $_FILES[“file”][“type”];
   $filesize = ($_FILES[“file”][“size”] / 1024) . ” kB”;

   if (file_exists(“downloads/” . $_FILES[“file”][“name”]))
   {
   echo $_FILES[“file”][“name”] . ” already exists. “;
   }
   else
   {
   move_uploaded_file($_FILES[“file”][“tmp_name”], $downloadspath . $_FILES[“file”][“name”]);
   echo “Stored in: “. MAIN_PATH . “downloads/” . $_FILES[“file”][“name”];
   }
   $q = “INSERT INTO downloads (title ,filename ,filesize, filetype )VALUES (‘$filetitle’, ‘$filename’, ‘$filesize’, ‘$filetype’)”;
   mysql_query($q);
   }

   }
   else
   {
   $msg = “Invalid file!!!”;
   }
5. Anna

   great tutorial however after i upload my files i can’t access my images
   why is this?
   help please
6. S.M. Sakil Imran

   Great tutorial. Thanks for your work. It helped me a lot to learn about PHP file uploading process very easily. Specially the commenting inside the code is so cool.
7. lummy

   tried using the code above though it works on my localhost but it’s not working on the online server, especially the move_ uploaded_ file statement. the file is not saving to the folder i specified.
8. lummy

   tried using the code above though it works on my localhost but it’s not working on the online server, especially the move_ uploaded_ file statement. the file is not saving to the folder i specified.
   this is the code
   <?php
   echo "”;
   echo “Client Filename:
   ” . $_FILES[“fileToUpload”][“name”] . “”;
   echo “File Type:
   ” . $_FILES[“fileToUpload”][“type”] . “”;
   echo “File Size:
   ” . ($_FILES[“fileToUpload”][“size”] / 1024) . ” Kb”;
   echo “Name of Temp File:
   ” . $_FILES[“fileToUpload”][“tmp_name”] . “”;
   echo “”; move_uploaded_file($_FILES[“fileToUpload”][“tmp_name”], “user/” . $_FILES[“fileToUpload”][“name”]); ?>
9. Youssef Ahmad Subehi

   i think you should correct this code
   move_uploaded_file($_FILES[‘photo’][‘tmp_name’], ‘uploads/’.$new_file_name);
   and make it
   move_uploaded_file($_FILES[‘photo’][‘name’], ‘uploads/’.$new_file_name);
10. Nishanth

    Hello
    I am getting error here if($_FILES['photo']['size'] > (1024000))

    From this line the entair coad is displaying
    can any one help me
11. snag

    hello
    help me to sort out my problem
    i can upload image in localhost but not able to upload in hosted server,
    output of print_r($_FILES) is

    Array ( [imageup] => Array ( [name] => IMG00054.jpg [type] => [tmp_name] => [error] => 1 [size] => 0 ) )
    
12. Sonny Nguyen

    $new_file_name = strtolower($_FILES['photo']['tmp_name']);
    

    Should be

    $new_file_name = strtolower($_FILES['photo']['name']);
    
13. Shawn

    Easy explaination there is also a short and easy tutorial of how to upload images to database and in server on TalkersCode.com http://talkerscode.com/webtricks/upload%20image%20to%20database%20and%20server%20using%20HTML,PHP%20and%20MySQL.php
14. Manish

    Well written, but when i read your code and tried to execute code, found a mistake in one place, you should use $_FILES['photo']['name'] instead tmp_name when you used to set $new_file_name first time. Thanks for posting
15. Dan Neamtu

    Also to prevent diacritics that can make some truble, you can use the function bellow:

    $title = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['titlui']);
    $unwanted_array = array(     'ă'=>'a', 'Ă'=>'A', 'ș'=>'s', 'Ș'=>'S', 'ț'=>'t', 'Ț'=>'T', 'Š'=>'S', 'š'=>'s', 'Ž'=>'Z', 'ž'=>'z', 'À'=>'A', 'Á'=>'A', 'Â'=>'A', 'Ã'=>'A', 'Ä'=>'A', 'Å'=>'A', 'Æ'=>'A', 'Ç'=>'C', 'È'=>'E', 'É'=>'E',
                                'Ê'=>'E', 'Ë'=>'E', 'Ì'=>'I', 'Í'=>'I', 'Î'=>'I', 'Ï'=>'I', 'Ñ'=>'N', 'Ò'=>'O', 'Ó'=>'O', 'Ô'=>'O', 'Õ'=>'O', 'Ö'=>'O', 'Ø'=>'O', 'Ù'=>'U',
                                'Ú'=>'U', 'Û'=>'U', 'Ü'=>'U', 'Ý'=>'Y', 'Þ'=>'B', 'ß'=>'Ss', 'à'=>'a', 'á'=>'a', 'â'=>'a', 'ã'=>'a', 'ä'=>'a', 'å'=>'a', 'æ'=>'a', 'ç'=>'c',
                                'è'=>'e', 'é'=>'e', 'ê'=>'e', 'ë'=>'e', 'ì'=>'i', 'í'=>'i', 'î'=>'i', 'ï'=>'i', 'ð'=>'o', 'ñ'=>'n', 'ò'=>'o', 'ó'=>'o', 'ô'=>'o', 'õ'=>'o',
                                'ö'=>'o', 'ø'=>'o', 'ù'=>'u', 'ú'=>'u', 'û'=>'u', 'ý'=>'y', 'þ'=>'b', 'ÿ'=>'y' );
    $title = strtr( $title, $unwanted_array );
    
16. Cyrus

    Awesome, well written tutorial man, thanks a lot
17. Christopher Dando

    Hi David, thanks for the tutorial, it’s really good. it was working for me for a while, but suddenly

    if ($_FILES['photo']['name']) {

    does not detect the file, matter what I try. in my error.log I get the error ‘Undefined index’. any ideas?
• arch

  Did you try using isset($_FILES['photo']['name'])? The problem happens because the name field is not set before the form is submitted.
• Vinny McCloud

  The variable photo is the name="" attribute on your input[type="file"] HTML element. So it is likely that you changed the name of your element, thus $_FILES cannot find your item. Change photo to the name="something" name of your element, or add photo as in,
18. arch

    $_FILES['photo']['tmp_name] gives a path which can’t be used properly to create the final file name in move_uploaded_to.
19. fercho

    This example helped me a lot thanks man!
20. Rinto

    I found this file upload functionality as a nightmare when I start my web development career. I could wish this article would have been earlier.

    Thanks David :)