MeioUpload Behavior – An improved File Upload Behavior for CakePHP
MeioUpload Behavior is an improved File Upload Behavior for the CakePHP framework. It’s based on the Digital Spaghetti’s Upload Behavior.
Juan Basso created a project hosted at github. I am unable to keep working on this behavior an he is making some updates to the code. I think github is a great tool because you can simply fork the project and make your own changes. Go check his work: http://github.com/jrbasso/MeioUpload/tree/master
Download
MeioUploadBehavior version 1.0.1
Related Articles
- Documentation translated to French
- Documentation translated to Ukrainian
- Junnan’s post
- Dave Rupert’s comment about MeioUpload Behavior
Features
- Can be used for any kind of files;
- Accepts custom directory for files to be uploaded;
- Validates the file extension and mime-type due to the behavior configuration;
- Validates the max file size;
- Allow custom validation rules;
- Allow as many thumbnails formats as you want;
- Allow more then one field to be uploadable, with custom options per field;
- Stores the directory, filesize, and mime-type in the database if the table has these fields. Also allows to customize these fields names;
- Allow the use of default files and deleting files without deleting the entire record;
- Delete files when the record is deleted or updated with a new file;
- Also works in the $model->saveAll method.
Usage
- Place the meio_upload.php file in your app/models/behaviors folder;
- If you want to use thumbnails, download Nate’s phpThumb Component and place it in your app/controllers/components folder;
- Insert in your model table a character varying field:
CREATE TABLE `products` ( `id` int(8) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, `name` varchar(255) default NULL, `description` text default NULL, `price` double default NULL, `picture` varchar(255) default NULL, `dir` varchar(255) default NULL, `mimetype` varchar(255) NULL, `filesize` int(11) unsigned default NULL, `created` datetime default NULL, `modified` datetime default NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`id`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
- Add the MeioUpload in the $actsAs of your model:
var $actsAs = array( 'MeioUpload' => array( 'picture' => array( 'dir' => 'img{DS}{model}{DS}{field}', 'create_directory' => true, 'allowed_mime' => array('image/jpeg', 'image/pjpeg', 'image/png'), 'allowed_ext' => array('.jpg', '.jpeg', '.png'), 'thumbsizes' => array( 'normal' => array('width'=>200, 'height'=>200), ), 'default' => 'default.jpg', ) ) ); - Use a form file input to the field:
echo $form->input('picture', array('type' => 'file')); - Make sure your form has multipart/form-data enctype:
echo $form->create('Product',array('type' => 'file')); - Make sure the PHP has permission to write in the folder yous specified and the php.ini allow the MAX_FILE_SIZE you specified.
Options
When you apply the MeioUpload Behavior to a Model, you pass an array with your options. Here are the options you can change and it’s defaults.
-
dir
The folder where the uploaded files will be saved. It must be inside the app/webroot directory and defaults to an empty string, what means that it will be the app/webroot itself. If you specify some path, then it will be app/webroot/the_path_you/specified. In this option you may use the {DS} pattern, what will be converted to ‘/’ in UNIX systems and to ‘\’ in Windows systems. -
allowed_mime
This option specifies the allowed mime-types for the files. It defaults to an empty array. What means that every mime-type will be accepted. But if you specify an array with the mime-types allowed, only files of these mime-types will be accepted.var $actsAs = array( 'picture' => array( 'allowed_mime' => array('image/jpeg', 'image/pjpeg', 'image/png') ) );The code above says that the picture field will be a file uploaded, and it allows ‘image/jpeg’, ‘image/pjpeg’ and ‘image/png’ mime-types. -
allowed_ext
This option specifies the allowed file extensions. It defaults to an empty array. What means that every extension will be accepted. But if you specify an array with the extensions allowed, only files with these extensions will be accepted.var $actsAs = array( 'picture' => array( 'allowed_ext' => array('.jpg', '.jpeg', '.png') ) );The code above says that the picture field will be a file uploaded, and it allows ‘.jpg’, ‘.jpeg’ and ‘.png’ extensions. -
create_directory
If you want to create the directory specified in the dir option if it don’t exists, then set this option to true. It already defaults to true, but you can set it to false. -
max_size
The max file size allowed in the upload. Be sure it’s lower then the php.ini configuration. You can set a numeric value of bytes, or set it in other unit like ‘8 Kb’, only ‘kb’, ‘mb’, ‘gb’ and ‘tb’ units are allowed and it’s not case-sensitive. It defaults to 2 Mb.var $actsAs = array( 'picture' => array( 'max_size' => '4 Mb' ) ); -
default
If you have a file that you want to use if the field is left blank, like a default picture for users who don’t have one, set this option to the name of this file. Make sure it is inside the folder specified in the ‘dir’ option.var $actsAs = array( 'picture' => array( 'default' => 'default.jpg' ) ); -
fields
With this option you can customize the field inside your model table, where the data will be saved. The filename is the key of the options array, and you can setup fields to store the filesize, mime-type and directory. It defaults to ‘filesize’, ‘mimetype’ and ‘dir’ respectively, but you can customize with an array:var $actsAs = array( 'picture' => array( 'fields' => array( 'filesize' => 'picture_filesize', 'mimetype' => '{field}_mimetype', 'dir' => 'pictures_folder' ) ) );The code above says that your filesize, mimetype and dir fields will be ‘picture_filesize’, ‘picture_mimetype’ and ‘picture_folder’ respectively. And the filename field will be pictures. You may notice that in mimetype case, i used the constant {field} that will be replaced with the field name(picture in this case).
Validations
The behavior automatically include some validations to your field. Here they are:
- FieldName Checks if the field has been setup to be and uploadable.
- Dir Checks if the directory exists or if it can be created. This validation depends on the option ‘create_directory’.
- Empty Checks if the filename is not empty. It defaults to be used only on create.
- UploadError Checks if ocurred erros in the upload.
- MaxSize Checks if the file isn’t bigger then the max file size option.
- InvalidMime Checks if the file is of an allowed mime-type.
- InvalidExt Checks if the file has an allowed extension.
You can overwrite any of the parameters of these default validation rules. Directly in the model $validate var:
var $validate = array(
'picture' => array(
'Empty' => array(
'check' => false
),
'InvalidExt => array(
'message' => 'This file extension isn't allowed.'
)
)
);
In the code above, i changed the message for the ‘InvalidExt’ default validation. You can also disable any of the default validations by setting the ‘check’ atribute fo false as is shown in the example above for the ‘Empty’ default validation. You can change any of the other parameters of the built-in cake validation:
var $validate = array(
'picture' => array(
'Empty' => array(
'rule' => array('YourDefaultValidation'),
'on' => 'update',
'required' => true
),
)
);
You can also change the validation rule for one you have created. But use this functionality carefully.
Setting up file removing
If you send a form data with as field named data[Model][field][remove] not empty, then the behavior will automatically delete the file associated with the record and set it’s value to the default, if it is set, or to empty. To achieve this you can add a checkbox to your form:
echo $form->input('Product.picture.remove', array('type' => 'checkbox'));


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January 25th, 2010 at 17:56
Why this SQL error? INSERT INTO
images(filename,modified,created) VALUES (Array, ‘2010-01-25 21:52:29′, ‘2010-01-25 21:52:29′)ImagesController: var $actsAs = array (’MeioUpload’ => array( ‘filename’ => array( ‘dir’ => ‘files/images’, )) ); function add() { $this->Image->save($this->data); }
add.ctp: create(’Image’,array(’type’ => ‘file’)); echo $form->file(’filename’, array(’type’ => ‘file’)); echo $form->end();?>
Thank you!
January 28th, 2010 at 21:02
I have the same SQL error
add.ctp echo $form->create(’Image’,array(’type’ => ‘file’)); echo $form->input(’picture’, array(’type’ => ‘file’)); echo $form->end(’Sauver les informations’);
ImagesController if (!empty($this->data)) { if ($this->Image->save($this->data)) { $this->flash(’Your image has been saved.’,'/images’);}}}
Any idea? I’m stuck.. thanks
February 1st, 2010 at 11:00
Ok, I’m a newbie in cake. Correct me if I’m wrong, cake’s conventions are the followings:
class MeioUpload => file meio_upload.php
In the downloaded archive, there is an upload.php file, that needs to be renamed meio_upload.php to work correctly.
February 1st, 2010 at 11:27
Sorry, downloaded archive is ok, the thing that put me in a wrong way is here:
http://cakeforge.org/snippet/detail.php?type=snippet&id=226
In the last downloadable version, we can see:
*Usage: *1 Download this behaviour and place it in your models/behaviours/upload.php