This tutorial will show you the steps needed to build a simple application to enable users to upload PDF files to the server, delete existing files and view the files in thier browser. This example uses our own dgFileUpload component and you can download a 15 day trial version here so you can follow the tutorial and test the finished application on your own server. All the source code, along with the small Access 2000 database used in this tutorial, can be downloaded as a ZIP archive here.

After downloading and un-zipping the archive, create a new directory under your web root (e.g. 'c:\inetpub\wwwroot\dgUpload') and put the two ASP pages ('upload.asp' and 'display.asp') and the database in there. You will also have to create a directory called 'pdfs' and set the security on this directory to allow full control for the 'Internet Guest Account' user. To do this, right-click on the 'pdfs' folder and select 'Properties' and then the 'Security' tab. If 'Internet Guest Account' is not already listed, click the "Add' button and then select the machine name from the 'Look in' drop-down menu. Scroll down until you see 'IUSR_[machinename]', select this user and click the 'Add' button. Hit 'Ok' to get back to the 'Properties' window, select the newly added user and give this entry 'Full Control'. You will now be able to test the application by entering the following URL into a browser:

http://localhost/dgUpload/upload.asp

On this page you will see two input fields; the first allows you to select the PDF file you want to upload and the other lets you enter a display name for the file. This name will be shown as a link to view the file on 'display.asp' after uploading. Browse to a suitable PDF file, enter a name and then click the 'Upload' button. Your file will be uploaded to and you will be redirected to the display page which will have a link to the file. The details (path, display name and date uploaded) of each file are stored in the database. Let's look at the code that does this.

After declaring our variables, the first thing we do is open a connection to the database.

Set cnnDB = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
strConn = "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};" & _
               "DBQ=" & Server.MapPath("newsletters.mdb")
cnnDB.Open strConn

Then we need to create an instance of the file upload component (in this case, dgFileUpload).

Set oPost = Server.CreateObject("dgFileUpload.dgUpload")

Because we want to restrict the file size of the uploaded PDFs to something reasonable we will set this to 10 Megabytes.

oPost.MaxFileSize = 10000000

Next we grab the data posted from the form by calling the 'GetPostData' method.

oPost.GetPostData()

The following code grabs the filename and the display name from the form collection, builds and executes the SQL query to store the file details in the database and then saves the file to the specified directory on the server. View the source of 'upload.asp' to see how this code integrates with the rest of the application.

' get the filename and display name
strDisplayName = oPost.Form("displayText")
strFileName = oPost.Files("pdfFile").FileName

' build the INSERT query
strQuery = "INSERT INTO NewsLetters (Filename, DisplayName) VALUES ('" & strFilename & "', '" & strDisplayName & "')"
cnnDB.Execute(strQuery)

' get the folder where we want to store the pdf
strFolder = Server.MapPath("pdfs") & "\"

' save the uploaded pdf to the specified directory
intResult = oPost.Files("pdfFile").Save(strFolder & strFileName, 1)

' if the file upload is successful, redirect to
' the page that displays the files ("display.asp")
If intResult = 0 Then
    cnnDB.Close
    Set cnnDB = Nothing
    Response.Redirect("display.asp")
Else
    strFeedBack = "File upload failed. Error #" & intResult
End If

If there is a problem with the upload or save process the 'strFeedback' variable is assigned a suitable message that is then displayed to the user. This is handled using client-side JavaScript once the page has been processed. Again, see the supplied source code for more details of how this works.

As mentioned before, the above example uses dgFileUpload but the process is similar whichever file upload component you use. The rest of this tutorial is extracted from an article on file upload components written by Michael Allen Smith and describes the process of uploading files using two other components, Software Artisans FileUp and Persists AspUpload.

Both (FileUp and AspUpload) handle uploads slightly differently. Let's code each of these components to handle our requirements (upload only image files below a specified size).

The form, where the client uploads a file, is identical for both.

<form name="form" action="upload.asp" enctype="MULTIPART/FORM-DATA" method="POST">
<input type="file" name="file1">
<input type="submit" value="Upload Files">
</form>

Before you pick which component you will be using, here is some common code that both can use. isFileSizeOK handles the file size restrictions. isValidFile is where you'll define what file extensions the client can upload.

<%
intMaxFileSize = 8000
strUploadFolder = "c:\uploadFolder"

Function isFileSizeOK(bytes)
' restrict file byte size
  byteMAX = intMaxFileSize
  If bytes > byteMAX Then
    isFileSizeOK = FALSE
  Else
    isFileSizeOK = TRUE
  End If
End Function

Function isValidFile(filename)
' define what file types you will permit to upload
  fileExtension = lcase(right(filename,4))
  select case fileExtension
  case ".gif",".jpg",".png","jpeg"
    isValidFile = TRUE
  case else
    isValidFile = FALSE
  end select
End Function
%>

Now the code for Software Artisans FileUp.

<%
Sub uploadSA
Set up = Server.CreateObject("SoftArtisans.FileUp")
up.Path = uploadFolder
If NOT up.IsEmpty Then
  filename = Mid(up.UserFilename, InstrRev(up.UserFilename, "\") + 1)
' restrict file types to upload
  If isValidFile(filename) Then
' restrict file by size
  If isFileSizeOK(up.TotalBytes) Then
    up.Save
    strUploadStatus1 = "File [" & filename & "] Uploaded Successfully! " &     up.TotalBytes
  Else
    strUploadStatus1 = "ERROR: File Too Large: " & filename & " (" &     up.TotalBytes & " bytes)"
  End If
Else
  strUploadStatus1 = "ERROR: This File Type is restricted from uploading: "   & filename
  End If
End If
Set up = Nothing
End Sub
%>

With Persist's AspUpload, you save the file first, then perform checks. If the file fails the checks, then the code deletes it from the server. This component also has a "SaveToMemory" option, which bypasses the write to the disk until instructed. ASPUpload has built-in image size handling and can detect if a file is an image with the .ImageType property, but for this example we'll use the isValidFile function.

<%
Sub uploadPersists
Set up = Server.CreateObject("Persits.Upload.1")
up.OverwriteFiles = TRUE
up.SetMaxSize intMaxFileSize
up.Save uploadFolder
For Each File in up.Files
  fileName = File.ExtractFileName
  If isValidFile(fileName) Then
    If isFileSizeOK(File.OriginalSize) Then
    strUploadStatus2 = "File [" & filename & "] Uploaded Successfully! "
  Else
    strUploadStatus2 = "ERROR: File Too Large: " & fileName & " (" &     File.OriginalSize & " bytes)"
    File.Delete
  End If
Else
  File.Delete
  strUploadStatus2 = "ERROR: This File Type is restricted from uploading: "   & fileName
End If
Next
End Sub
%>

Michael Allen Smith is a web developer living in San Diego. In addition to his web development site Digital Colony, he also runs INeedCoffee.com, a non-commercial site devoted to coffee.