PHP $_FILES variable is often used when uploading files. In this tutorial, we will introduce it for php beginners.
What is $_FILES?
$_FILES contains some information on uploaded files, such as file name, file size, file type etc. We can use these information to save files.
How to get file information from $_FILES?
Look at code below:
<form action="upload-manager.php" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<h2>Upload File</h2>
<label for="fileSelect">Filename:</label>
<input type="file" name="photo" id="fileSelect">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Upload">
<p><strong>Note:</strong> Only .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png formats allowed to a max size of 5 MB.</p>
</form>We can use $_FILES[‘photo’] to get file information, where photo is the name of the file.
What information we can get from php $_FILES?
As to example above, we can use $_FILES[‘photo’] to get these information:
| $_FILES[‘photo’][‘name’] | file name | testfile.txt |
| $_FILES[‘photo’][‘type’] | file mime type | application/octet-stream, image/gif |
| $_FILES[‘photo’][‘size’] | file size in byte | 4321 |
| $_FILES[‘photo’][‘tmp_name’] | the path of file that is saved in server temporarily, this value can be set by upload_tmp_dir in php.ini | such as: /tmp/php6wHXmC |
| $_FILES[‘photo’][‘error’] | the error code | |
| UPLOAD_ERR_OK (0) | upload successfully | |
| UPLOAD_ERR_INI_SIZE (1) | the file size if bigger than upload_max_filesize in php.ini | |
| UPLOAD_ERR_FORM_SIZE (2) | the file size is larger than maximum size in html form | |
| UPLOAD_ERR_PARTIAL (3) | a part of file has been uploaded | |
| UPLOAD_ERR_NO_FILE (4) | no file uploaded |