PHP - multiple file upload

Question

I am building a simple CMS for a client. They need the ability to manage employee profiles.

Each profile needs an image.

Currently I have a form for adding employees, and associating an uploaded image with a single record is easy.

Below the record add form, I have a list of existing records (and a thumbnail of the image). These records are printed between form tags, I've got a checkbox next to each record (marking it will delete it when the form submits).

I want to use this form to also UPDATE records; deletions occur first, then $_POST data is parsed and records updated.

When a record has no image associated with it, instead of a thumbnail, a file input tag is printed. Because there is a variable number of records, the file tags are all named image[] so I can easily loop through them.

Question: how do I correlate $_FILES data with $_POST data? Do I have to name each file input to image_<?=$record_id?> to determine which record the file belongs to?

Answer 1

You will need to name each file input, and access it via $FILES['unique_name'].

Answer 2

Using the default fieldname[] notation, you can't control what indexes PHP assigns to the server-side representations in POST/GET/REQUEST/FILES. PHP'll just add them sequentially and if there's a gap in your form, it'll be gone once the data hits the server.

You can, hoever, FORCE indexes, so that fieldname[7] and newimage[7] all relate to the same fieldset in your form.

Answer 3

Your solution looks good, i would add record id as index, for ex:

image[<?=$record_id?>];

You can then correlate by array index

Answer 4

instead of

<input name="image[]">

use assocative array, for ex.:

<input name="image[id_<?=$record_id?>]">