Question

PHP Uploading issue Getting Error 0 but move_uploaded_file() is returning false. When I print out $_FILES I get

Array ( [uploadedfile] => Array ( [name] => flashlog.txt [type] =>
text/plain [tmp_name] => /tmp/php0XYQgd [error] => 0 [size] => 3334 ) ) 

I’m using a basic html/php tutorial which leaves me to believe that it might be a server issue. I check the php.ini and have upload_max_filesize:2M, post_max_size:8M. So I’m really confused as I thought error of 0 told me that it was successful.

The code I’m using is

<?php

// Where the file is going to be placed 
$target_path = 'Test/';

$target_path = $target_path. basename( $_FILES['uploadedfile']['name']); 

if(move_uploaded_file($_FILES['uploadedfile']['tmp_name'], $target_path)) 
{
 echo "The file ".  basename( $_FILES['uploadedfile']['name']). 
 " has been uploaded";
} 
else
{
 echo "There was an error uploading the file, please try again!";
 echo print_r($_FILES);
}
?>

Answer 1

move_uploaded_file() will also return false if it can’t write to the target directory.

Most PHP code I see to handle uploads skips checking some major piece of the process. Upload code should do the following steps:

1. Check that $_FILES[] exists and the correct entry is populated.
2. Look in the error field to see if it got to the server at all — a lot of code just checks that it’s 0, which means it can’t return any decent error to the user.
3. Be certain the destination where you need to move the file actually exists.
4. Call move_uploaded_file() to do the move – too many just do a file copy, which bypasses the security checks that move_uploaded_file() does.

These are discrete steps: as you seem to be seeing, the actual upload can succeed, yet move_uploaded_file() can fail. Your question assumes that if the latter failed, so did the former.

Oh yes: call move_uploaded_file($_FILES['uploadedfile']['tmp_name'], $destination). Using $_FILES['uploadedfile']['name'] won’t work.