Provided by: libcgi-uploader-perl_2.18-3_all bug

NAME

       CGI::Uploader::Cookbook - Examples of CGI::Uploader usage

Description

       "CGI::Uploader::Cookbook" is a tutorial that accompanies the CGI::Uploader distribution.
       It shows example syntax for common uses.

       "CGI::Uploader" module is designed to help with the task of managing files uploaded
       through a CGI application. The files are stored on the file system, and the file
       attributes stored in a SQL database.

Introduction to CGI::Uploader

   A Little History
       The release of this module represents a culmination of seven years of experience managing
       file uploads as a professional website developer for Summersault, LLC
       (<http://www.summersault.com/>). Over that time I noticed patterns that were re-usable
       from project to project. I went through several versions and rewrites of modules that
       attempted to be 'generic' and not need modification when the next project came along. With
       CGI::Uploader, I believe I finally have a solution that I will continue to be happy with
       and I think others will be find generally useful. Enjoy!

   Freedom of Choice
       I endeavored to make CGI::Uploader to work within a variety of system designs.  It offers
       you freedom choice in the following areas:

       •   Database Choice

           MySQL and Postgres are supported directly. The SQL used is very simple-- support for
           additional databases should be trivial.

       •   Choice of Query Provider

           The query object used may provided by "CGI.pm", "CGI::Simple" or "Apache::Request".
           Another source could be used by overriding the "upload" method.

       •   File Storage Schemes for Large and Small Projects

           For small projects, all uploads can be stored in a single directory. For large
           projects, we provide the "md5" file scheme, which should scale well to millions of
           images, without burdening any single directory with storing too many of them.

       •   Choice of Data Display

           Because the meta data is stored in a straightforward SQL database table, you can
           retrieve your data and display in any number of custom ways. Several functions are
           also built in to help with common display tasks. The "build_loc()" method is used to
           construct the file system or URL path of an image, given it's ID and extension.

           "fk_meta()" provides an easy way to get the meta data of an upload by relating it to a
           foreign key in another table.

           Finally, "transform_meta()" is a basic function which transforms a hashref of data
           from the database into a format more useful for display, producing a hash that looks
           like this:

            {
                my_custom_prefix_id     => 523,
                my_custom_prefix_url    => 'http://localhost/images/uploads/523.pdf',
                    my_custom_prefix_width  => 23,
                    my_custom_prefix_height => 46,
            }

       •   Image Processor

           While "CGI::Uploader" works with all types of file uploads, it contains a number of
           features to help with common tasks associated with image uploads.

           "Image::Magick" is the preferred image processing module for to use when creating the
           thumbnails. Support for "GD" is in progress. "GD" supports many fewer formats, but
           also has much fewer dependencies to get installed than "Image::Magick" does. Another
           providers could be used by extending or overriding the "gen_thumb()" method.

   Just Three Essential Methods to Learn
       A goal of <CGI::Uploader> is to provide a high-level interface to make managing file
       uploads easy. Only three methods are needed to manage all the functions needed to store,
       update, delete and view the uploads attached to some database entity. Those methods are
       "store_uploads()", "delete_checked_uploads()" and "fk_meta".

   More methods when you need them
       When your needs before more complex, you can call the lower-level functions in
       "CGI::Uploader" to meet your needs. Most functions use file names to access file uploads,
       so it's easy to use the module to manipulate files from other sources than the browser
       upload field.

       For example, the "gen_thumb()" method is general purpose thumbnail creating routine.

Browse, Read, Edit, Add, Delete (BREAD) Example Application

       The following sections will provide a walk through of a simple application using
       CGI::Uploader. This is intended to provide the picture of how this module can be used.
       Some details have been glossed over. For a complete, working example application, please
       see the "examples" directory of the distribution.

       Before "CGI::Uploader" can be useful, some setup needs to be done.  You need some database
       tables to store the information in.

   Example Database
       For these examples, we'll set up some tables to manage photos of friends.  Here is the SQL
       to create such tables with Postgres:

               -- Note the Postgres specific syntax here
           CREATE SEQUENCE upload_id_seq;
               CREATE TABLE uploads (
                       upload_id   int primary key not null
                                       default nextval('upload_id_seq'),
                       mime_type   character varying(64),
                       extension   character varying(8), -- file extension
                       width       integer,
                       height      integer,
                       gen_from_id integer
               );

        CREATE SEQUENCE friend_id_seq;
        CREATE TABLE address_book (
           friend_id       int primary key NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('friend_id_seq'),
           full_name       varchar(64),

           -- these two reference uploads('upload_id'),
           photo_id            int,
           photo_thumbnail_id  int
        );

       (MySQL is also supported. Check in the distribution for sample SQL 'Create' scripts for
       both MySQL and Postgresql databases).

   Object Creation
       You can create one "CGI::Uploader" object and use it for adding, updating, viewing and
       deleting uploads. So don't despair that it has a few required parameters-- you only need
       to type them once! :)

        use CGI::Uploader::Transform::ImageMagick;
        my $u = CGI::Uploader->new(
               spec => {
                       photo =>  {
                   gen_files => {
                       photo_thumbnail => gen_thumb({ w => 100, h => 100}),
                   }
               }
           }

               updir_url  => 'http://localhost/uploads',
               updir_path => '/home/friends/www/uploads',
               dbh            => $dbh,

        );

Adding a Database Record and Related Uploads

       Before we can do anything else with the uploads, we need to get some added into the
       system.

       "CGI::Uploader" is designed to make this happening easily as part of the normal process of
       adding a normal database record. In this case, we'll be adding a friend.

   Example 'Add Form'
       Here's the form used to add a friend. It includes fields for the friend's name, and a
       photo of them.

        <form action="your-script.cgi" enctype="multipart/form-data" METHOD="POST">
           Friend Name: <input type="text" name="full_name"> <br />
           Image: <input type="file" name="photo">
           <input type="submit">
        </form>

       Notice that the 'enctype' is important for file uploads to work.

       Notice we have a text field for a 'full_name' and a file upload field named 'photo'.

   Processing the Add Form
       AS a first step for processing the 'add form', I recommend validating the form with
       Data::FormValidator. It includes several routines just to validate file uploads. However,
       it's not necessary to validate the form.

        # CGI::Simple provides a CGI.pm-like interface with much better performance
        use CGI::Simple;
        my $q = CGI::Simple->new();
        my $form = $q->Vars;
        my $friend = $u->store_uploads($form);

        # Now the $friend hash been transformed so it can easily inserted
        # It now looks like this:
        # {
        #    full_name => 'M. Lewis',
        #    photo_id => 3,
        #    photo_thumbnail_id => 4,
        # }

        # I like to use SQL::Interp for easy inserts.
        # See DBIx::Simple for an even more friendly wrapper.
        use SQL::Interp 'sql_interp';
        $dbh->do(sql_interp "INSERT INTO address_book",$friend);

   Database Result of Adding
       Here's what ended up in the database:

        address_book table:

        friend_id | full_name | photo_id | photo_thumbnail_id
        -----------------------------------------------------
        2         | M. Lewis  |        3 |                 4

        uploads table:

        upload_id | mime_type | extension | width | height | gen_from_id
        --------------------------------------------------------------------
                3 | image/png |      .png |   200 |    400 |
                4 | image/png |      .png |    50 |    100 |               3

       The files are stored on the file system. '4.png' was generated on the server a thumbnail
       of 3.png.

        /home/friends/www/uploads/3.png
        /home/friends/www/uploads/4.png

Displaying & Linking to Uploads

       You don't strictly need this module to display the uploaded image. You could construct
       your own database queries and URLs instead. However, the "fk_meta" method is provided to
       simplify things for you.

       Continuing with the example above, we would use this code to generate the details we need
       to display and link to the photo and thumbnail:

        my $href = $u->fk_meta(
               table    => 'address_book',
               where    => { friend_id => 2 },
               prefixes => [qw/photo photo_thumbnail/],
               );

       That will fetch the details of the photo and thumbnail associated with the friend who is
       an ID of "2".

       The resulting hashref will look something like this:

        {
               photo_id                => 3,
               photo_url               =>'http://localhost/uploads/3.png?23',
               photo_width     => 200,
               photo_height    => 400',

               photo_thumbnail_id              => 4,
               photo_thumbnail_url     =>'http://localhost/uploads/4.png?23',
               photo_thumbnail_width   => 50,
               photo_thumbnail_height  => 200',

        }

       This hashref can often be passed directly to a templating system such as HTML::Template
       for display.

       You may be wondering about the query strings on the URLS. These are random numbers to
       defeat browser image caching, which is very useful on "edit" forms. This behavior may
       change or become optional in a future release.

Displaying an Update Form

       So now we've added 'M. Lewis' to our friend database and displayed his photo on the web.
       M. Lewis turned out not to be happy about this. He reports that the photo used was not his
       'good side' and has sent a 'better' photo to use.

       So now we need to have a form to update the photo from.

       The form to update the upload will be a lot like the 'add form'. Additionally, it's nice
       to display a link to current upload on the form. This can be done using "fk_meta", as
       demonstrated above.

       Our Update Form might look like this if we are using HTML::Template for display:

        <form action="your-script.cgi" enctype="multipart/form-data" METHOD="POST">
           <P>Friend Name: <input type="text" name="full_name"> </p>
               <P>
               <a href="<tmpl_var photo_url>">Current Image</a> <br/>
               <input type="checkbox" value="1" name="photo_delete"> Delete Image?
               </P>
               <input type="hidden" name="photo_id" value="<tmpl_var photo_id>">
           <p>Image: <input type="file" name="photo"></p>
           <input type="submit">
        </form>

   Processing an Update Form
       Processing an update form is the most complicated part of application. From this form it's
       possible to add, update and delete uploads

       To process the update form, we'll first delete any uploads that the user has requested to
       remove. Next, add and update any other uploads as need.

        my $friend = $q->Vars;

        my @fk_names = $u->delete_checked_uploads;
        map { $friend->{$_} = undef } @fk_names;
        delete $friend->{photo_delete};

        $friend = $u->store_uploads($friend);

       Although the call to "store_uploads()" looks the same as it did for adding a record, it
       works a little different now. Notice we passed a photo_id through the form above. Because
       this is present, that record will be updated instead of creating a new one.

Recipe Idea: Put an existing directory of photos on line

       You have an existing directory full of JIGS that you want to put on-line as a photo
       gallery, with medium and small versions created of all the images.  "CGI::Uploader" is
       versatile enough to help in this situation as well.

       Your spec might look like this:

        large_jpeg  => [
           { name => 'medium', w => 500, },
           { name => 'small',  w => 250,
         ],

       From there, read in all the file names and store all the files, with the smaller versions
       being created automatically for you along the way.

        for my $jpeg (<*.jpg>) {
          my %entity_upload_extra = $self->store_upload(
               file_field    => 'large_jpeg',
               src_file      => $jpeg,
               uploaded_mt   => 'image/jpeg',
               file_name     => $jpeg,
           );
        }

       Now you may want to display a page containing all of the smallest thumbnails.  If these
       IDs had been stored in another table, we could use fk_meta() to get all of the small
       thumbnails.

       In this case, it is still possible to get a reasonable result by selecting images based on
       their size.

       [TODO: example code for this needs to be written. ]

Recipe Idea: Handling anonymous image uploads

       It is also possible with CGI::Uploader to have many "anynonmous" uploads associated with
       another entity in the database.

       [ TODO: And the documentation for how to that still needs to be written. :) ]

See Also

       CGI::Uploader

Author

         Mark Stosberg  <mark@summersault.com>