I'm using APC to make a upload meter. These are the files:
Form
Upload Meter
php.ini
The problem I'm having is I'm getting nothing when I do the FETCH. I'm taking a look at the APC INFO panel as I'm making the upload and I see that the key upload_XXXXX isn't stored in the cache until the file is completely uploaded!
What am I doing wrong? Do I have something badly configured in php.ini?
I've read here that there's a bug having to do with lightppd.
As discussed in the comments, APC's file upload progress indicator is either unreliable or not functional under FastCGI.
Your best bet for a upload progress indicator is therefore going to be client-side.
I'm a big fan of Plupload, an upload widget that supports no less than six backends to provide better functionality than the regular file input type (including the HTML5 File interface in browsers that support it). You can use it standalone with a custom widget of your own design, or you can use the included fancy jQuery widget.
If you want something a little more oldschool, there's also good old SWFUpload.
Both of these options will fall back to a normal file input when Javascript is disabled.
Sorry, this isn't a direct answer to your question, but you may want to consider the HTML5 file API with XMLHttpRequest.
var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
req.upload.addEventListener("progress", updateProgress, false);
// ...
req.open();
// ...
There are some examples on developer.mozilla.org.
The downside is that it is browser dependent. The upside is that it is server independent. But ultimately, this will be the best way to track file uploads.
Related
Is it possible to upload a specific part of the file rather than the whole file? Say, I want to upload only first 100 bytes of the file, or the rest of the file given offset 100 bytes?
In more modern browsers, with the right permissions, yes. You need the browser to support file stream reading. A tutorial is here: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/file/dndfiles/
Open the file, find the chunk you want and the POST through AJAX (e.g. with jQuery).
You may find it easier to synchronously upload in chunks and piece together serverside (e.g. with a session) - this way you can give feedback on the upload progress.
Not sure of a method for older browsers, or ones where this is blocked by the user - so you're probably better uploading the entire file (using a FILE post) and stripping out the bit you need serverside. More upload, but better support for everyone.
Edit - someone else just posted a question about this: https://github.com/blueimp/jQuery-File-Upload - it doesn't appear to support it natively, but it may also do what you want with some fiddling? You'll still need to handle the fallback, though.
Yes, it is possible. You can use javascript FileApi with BlobApi to upload any part of file. Note, this is a HTML5 feature.
If you want to investigate this features you can look at jQuery File Upload Plugin
You can use slice method of file api to get half file.
var midpt=Math.round(file.size/2);
var halfFile=file.slice(0,midpt); //specify start and end positions
Since natively IE7 (and some others browsers, haven't checked yet, to be precise) doesn't use <input multiple="" /> parameter, I would love to know what is... the most compatible (varies by preference, yes, yes) solution for one input field, multiple file upload.
It would be nice, if there would be no JavaScript involved in solution, but I somehow have this strange feeling, that it is impossible - correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks in advance!
The most browser compatible pure HTML method of allowing multiple file uploads is to simply have multiple:
<input type="file" />
You can alternatively use Java or Flash uploaders -- but these are probably less compatible then JavaScript.
JavaScript which degrades gracefully is probably your best bet, check out Valum's File-Uploader. The library allows you to make use of:
Multiple file uploading through the upload form element if the browser supports it.
Drag and drop file uploading if the browser supports it
Degrade all the way down to an HTML input form element if the browser has JavaScript disabled.
It is very good practice to develop for the latest browsers, while supporting older browsers (not the other way around). If people are on older browsers or don't have JavaScript enabled, then multiple file uploading is going to be painful regardless of what you do.
Our world as yet to bestow on to us such a tool/control ...
But I think the best your going to get, if you don't want to use any client-side technologies (Like javascript or Flash), is to let the user upload a file with a normal POST and then somehow (maybe in your session) remember the files that the user uploaded or just save them to the database as they come in.
So the process would be:
the user selects a file and uploads;
you display the image and ask if they
want to upload another file;
you then give them a option to go to
the next page or do some action.
Probably not the best way to approach this but it should work.
Then again if you are willing to use Javascript or Flash there are tons of scripts out there that would allow you to upload multiple files. So maybe look for one that gives only one input and populates a list of selected images?
Just my 2 cents ...
So here is what I want in short:
A PHP/Javascript/AJAX based File Uploader with a Progress bar what shows the percent(ex: 52%) and <div> what grows in width as the upload goes on.
And in long:
I would like a solution written in PHP and Javascript(Not jQuery), I tried myself but in server side I can't get the file size of the uploading file so I can't calculate the remaining percent.
Maybe there is a way to do it normally but I didn't find any clear ways. What I found is a lots of PHP patches what didn't worked :\ .
At last I tried Uber Uploader what uses Perl, I installed correctly but when I try to upload a file the progress bar is not shown, there are no errors just doesn't works :(.
However I don't really like to use such solutions because it's really messy even if it works, I like to write my own code if it's possible but I don't find any solution yet.
Also there are flash uploaders like pixeline and swfupload , but as I sayed I would like to use PHP and Javascript.
You should use the UploadProgress extension, along with a jQuery AJAX request that updates your progress bar according to the reply, every x milliseconds.
Here's the link to the extension: http://pecl.php.net/package/uploadprogress/
Alternatively, it can also be done with APC.
The file size can be obtained when you access the directory or folder of the file and this may be requested separately or when opening the file depending on the language you eventually use. The progress bar types are legally protected items and they have rules for indicating the progress in different ways visually and some are licensable from major suppliers but there are some freeware or shareware versions which may operate on a compatible operating system when allowed.
PHP completely processes file uploads before passing control back to the page.
This creates a problem.
The only real PHP solution I know of involves the use of APC, which adds a hook to PHP that you can access via a second PHP script over AJAX.
I was trying to upload a photo on facebook using a browser with no flash, and could see that it didn't work.
I am pretty confident in handling files and related issues using Php and have done some sites allowing users to upload and manage files (images, docs etc). But I never thought about the above flash approach. I googled a bit and saw that there are few scripts available on which I can look how it works using flash.
But my questions are, when I should decide to use flash for user uploads. What are the advantages of using this approach? or disadvantages?
Thanks
It isn't a choice between Flash and PHP. You need something on the client to send the data and something on the server to receive it.
Ask yourself the following question:
Does Flash offer anything useful for my project?
The obvious things it lets you do are having a nice UI for selecting multiple files at once, and a simple method for seeing the progress of uploads.
If you decide that it does offer features, then implement it using progressive enhancement. Flickr is an example of this — with Flash you get the fancy uploader, without it you still get a series of regular file inputs. They aren't as nice to use, but they are functional and what would have been used if Flash wasn't an option in the first place
Depends on your audience: If you are pretty sure that your users have flash installed, there is nothing against it. It even gives some neat advantages, like:
Upload of multiple files at once
Progress bar while uploading
Instant preview of uploaded media
etc.
Well, with flash, the obvious letdown is that it will only work when a user has flash (although, you could display something in its place if they didn't). If your a flash programmer and comfortable with flash, I can see how it would be better. You could generate a file list, multiple uploads ect. I would say it's just an alternative to JavaScript for providing interactivity and allowing users to upload content dynamically.
when I should decide to use flash for
user uploads.
use it when the whole website is flash, but that is not professional and you can't count a lot on flash security, while you can write/use a lot of classes for hardening and checking files uploaded by php scripts..
on the other hand, some people like flash upload for progress bars, but you can do such stuff with php and jquery. for example check uplodify
Correction
I don't have flash support on my current browser so when watching uploadify demos I only see the fallback, thanks to soulmerge for making this clear
Does anyone know of any methods to create a file upload progress bar in PHP? I have often heard that it's impossible.
I have one idea, but not sure if it would work: have a normal file upload, but instead submit to an iframe. When this is submitted, store the file information (size and temp location) in the session. At the same time, start an AJAX call to every say 10 seconds to check the size of the file compared to the size stored in the session. This would return the size to the AJAX and then a progress bar would be sized and maybe display the uploaded size to the user.
Thoughts?
You're pretty much figured out how to do it. The main problem is you usually don't have access to the size of the uploaded file until it's done uploading.
There are workarounds for this:
Enabling APC, you to access this information if you include a field called "APC_UPLOAD_PROGRESS" and use apc_fetch() for retrieving a cache entry with the status.
There's also a plugin called uploadprogress but it's not very well documented and doesn't work on Windows (last I checked anyway).
An alternative is to use Flash for doing it. See scripts like FancyUpload.
Before APC came along I had to write a CGI script in C that wrote information to a text file. APC seems like a much better way to do it now though.
Hope this helps.
So far, the most common way of doing this is SWFUpload: http://www.swfupload.org/
However, it is possible with pure PHP, just very difficult and very experimental. I'll see if I can find the link.
Edit:
According to comments on php.net, as of 5.2 there is a hook to handle upload progress. http://us.php.net/features.file-upload#71564
More explanation:
http://www.dinke.net/blog/2006/11/04/php-52-upload-progress-meter/en/
http://blog.liip.ch/archive/2006/09/10/upload-progress-meter-extension-for-php-5-2.html
Rasmus' Example:
http://progphp.com/progress.phps
You can try YUI or Prototype or JQuery
From PHP 5.4 it is in session extension: http://php.net//manual/pl/session.upload-progress.php
In pure PHP, you are correct: it's not possible.
If you AJAX-ify this, then you could do what you're describing. The only progress meters I've ever seen are in Javascript or Flash, though I imagine Silverlight could do it also.
"Old school", but a PHP + Perl technique: http://www.raditha.com/php/progress.php
In my opinion, the best / easiest solution is to build a small flash widget, that consists of an 'Upload' button and a progress bar. Flash gives you very detailed feedback on how much data has been uploaded so far, and you can build a nice progress bar based on that. Doesn't require inefficient polling of the server, and in fact doesn't require any changes at all to your server code. Google for 'flash uploader' and you'll find many people have already written these widgets and are happy to sell them to you for a buck.
I'd recommend looking at SWFUpload to accomplish what you want. It's fairly flexible and supports queueing of files, so you could even handle multi-file uploads.
You will definately want to go with digitgerald's FancyUpload. It's Mootools & swfuplaod based, and it sports a nice queue with statusses, progress, eta etc. It's really the slickest method i've seen for uploading files. For my personal use case ivé used it to let the client select 1.2 gb of PDF files and upload them. Newer ones get renamed and versioned automatically, same are skipped, etc.