Posted by Marek Kilimajer on 10/21/76 11:15

Murray @ PlanetThoughtful wrote:
> Hi All,
>
>
>
> I need to implement the ability to ftp upload files from client machines via
> a form in a web application I'm developing.
>
>
>
>>From reading the PHP help, all I can find to perform this is the POST method
> for handling file uploads
> (http://au2.php.net/manual/en/features.file-upload.php).
>
>
>
>>From my perspective, while this seems to work, there are a couple of
> drawbacks, most important of which is that it seems you can only do
> comparisons of the uploaded file, against the potential that the file has
> already been uploaded, once the file has already been uploaded and is
> sitting in the server temp directory.
>
>
>
> This is a drawback to our application because the files can typically vary
> on a daily basis in size from 20mb thru to 400mb, and 400mb seems like a lot
> of bandwidth to consume to discover that the file already exists on our
> server.
>
>
>
> I had hoped there was a way in which I could retrieve stats of the file
> being uploaded prior to beginning the upload, to compare against files in
> the target directory, so that the application can advise the user that the
> file already exists and to give them the option to cancel the upload.


PHP script starts once the upload is finished, but this is not true for
some other languages, for example perl.

> Another minor drawback is that it seems the Post upload method changes the
> file datetime to the datetime of the upload.

Browsers don't send file's modificaton time, so it's not available.

>
>
>
> So, can anyone confirm that there is no other way to upload files from a
> client machine using a form? (and assuming they don't have an ftp server at
> their end).

Cliens need ftp client software, some sort is for sure installed on
every machine.

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