Multiple file upload in each inputs using CodeIgniter and Ajax

Question

I am not able to upload any images after second input. I can only upload the first input. The inputs are created dynamically when another input value is added. Below is the code:

\\ jquery //
function storeupdate(){
$.ajax({
  type:"POST",
  url:"<?php echo base_url(); ?>updatestore",
  data:$("#mainstore").serialize(),
  success: function(response){
    var data = new FormData();
    input = document.getElementById('file');
      for(var i = 0; i < input.files.length; i++)
      {
        data.append('images[]', document.getElementById('file').files[i]);
      }
    $.ajax({
        type: 'POST',
        url: '<?php echo base_url(); ?>storeupload',
        cache: false,
        contentType: false,
        processData: false,
        data : data,
        success: function(result){
            console.log(result);
        },
        error: function(err){
            console.log(err);
        }
    });
    swal('Successful!', 'Data has been saved!', 'success');
    //window.location.reload();
  },
  error: function() {
    swal("Oops", "We couldn't connect to the server!", "error");
  }
 });
 return false;
 };


\\ view // 
<input type="file" name="images[]" id="file" class="file" accept="image/*;capture=camera" multiple="multiple" />
<button type="button" class="btn btn-success save" id="save" name="save" onclick="storeupdate();" disabled>Save</button>


\\ controller //
public function storeupload()
{
$files= $_FILES;
$cpt = count ($_FILES['images']['name']);
for($i = 0; $i < $cpt; $i ++) {

    $_FILES['images']['name'] = $files['images']['name'][$i];
    $_FILES['images']['type'] = $files['images']['type'][$i];
    $_FILES['images']['tmp_name'] = $files['images']['tmp_name'][$i];
    $_FILES['images']['error'] = $files['images']['error'][$i];
    $_FILES['images']['size'] = $files['images']['size'][$i];

    $this->upload->initialize ( $this->set_upload_options1() );
    $this->upload->do_upload("images");
    $fileName = $_FILES['images']['name'];
    $images[] = $fileName;
}

}

Answer 1

I made and tested a little sample of code so that you can see what's wrong. You have a few things wrong. First thing I would recommend is actually using jQuery. Your code is obviously using jQuery, but you have all kinds of vanilla JS that can be simplified:

$(document).ready(function(){

    $('#save').on('click', function(){
        var fileInput = $('#file_input')[0];
        if( fileInput.files.length > 0 ){
            var formData = new FormData();
            $.each(fileInput.files, function(k,file){
                formData.append('images[]', file);
            });
            $.ajax({
                method: 'post',
                url:"/multi_uploader/process",
                data: formData,
                dataType: 'json',
                contentType: false,
                processData: false,
                success: function(response){
                    console.log(response);
                }
            });
        }else{
            console.log('No Files Selected');
        }
    });

});

Notice that I hard coded in the ajax URL. The controller I used for testing was named Multi_uploader.php.

Next is that in your controller when you loop through the $_FILES, you need to convert that over to "userfile". This is very important if you plan to use the CodeIgniter upload class:

public function process()
{
    $F = array();

    $count_uploaded_files = count( $_FILES['images']['name'] );

    $files = $_FILES;
    for( $i = 0; $i < $count_uploaded_files; $i++ )
    {
        $_FILES['userfile'] = [
            'name'     => $files['images']['name'][$i],
            'type'     => $files['images']['type'][$i],
            'tmp_name' => $files['images']['tmp_name'][$i],
            'error'    => $files['images']['error'][$i],
            'size'     => $files['images']['size'][$i]
        ];

        $F[] = $_FILES['userfile'];

        // Here is where you do your CodeIgniter upload ...
    }

    echo json_encode($F);
}

This is the view that I used for testing:

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Multi Uploader</title>
    <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.min.js"></script>
    <script src="/js/multi_uploader.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
    <form>
        <input type="file" name="images[]" id="file_input" multiple />
        <button type="button" id="save">Upload</button>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Finally, just to prove that the files were uploaded to the controller, and that I could use them with CodeIgniter, I send the ajax response as a json encoded array, and display it in the console. See the code comment where you would put your CodeIgniter upload code.

UPDATE (to show what to do with multiple file inputs) ---

If you want to have multiple file inputs, then that obviously changes your HTML and JS a bit. In that case, your HTML would have the multiple inputs:

<input type="file" name="images[]" class="file_input" multiple />
<input type="file" name="images[]" class="file_input" multiple />
<input type="file" name="images[]" class="file_input" multiple />
<input type="file" name="images[]" class="file_input" multiple />

And your javascript needs to change to loop through each input:

$(document).ready(function(){
    $('#save').on('click', function(){
        var fileInputs = $('.file_input');
        var formData = new FormData();
        $.each(fileInputs, function(i,fileInput){
            if( fileInput.files.length > 0 ){
                $.each(fileInput.files, function(k,file){
                    formData.append('images[]', file);
                });
            }
        });
        $.ajax({
            method: 'post',
            url:"/multi_uploader/process",
            data: formData,
            dataType: 'json',
            contentType: false,
            processData: false,
            success: function(response){
                console.log(response);
            }
        });
    });
});

A little more info about your comment regarding adding the details to your database ---

When you do an upload with CodeIgniter, there is a provided upload summary:

$summary = $this->upload->data();

This is an array of data that ends up looking like this:

$summary = array(
    'file_name'     => 'mypic.jpg',
    'file_type'     => 'image/jpeg',
    'file_path'     => '/path/to/your/upload/',
    'full_path'     => '/path/to/your/upload/jpg.jpg',
    'raw_name'      => 'mypic',
    'orig_name'     => 'mypic.jpg',
    'client_name'   => 'mypic.jpg',
    'file_ext'      => '.jpg',
    'file_size'     => 22.2
    'is_image'      => 1
    'image_width'   => 800
    'image_height'  => 600
    'image_type'    => 'jpeg',
    'image_size_str' => 'width="800" height="200"'
);

So all you would have to do to add a record to your database is this after each upload:

$summary = $this->upload->data();

$this->db->insert('storefiles', array(
    'Store_ID'  => $_POST['storeid'],
    'File_Name' => $summary['file_name'], 
    'Created'   => date('Y-m-d h:i:s'), 
    'Modified'  => date('Y-m-d h:i:s')
));

It's pretty easy to see that you could store a lot more than just the filename.

Answer 2

I know this question is old, but for people like me who encounter this error: is_uploaded_file() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given after using the Code Igniter file upload library within the loop like so:

for ( $i = 0; $i < count($var); $i++ )
{
    // other codes here

    // Do codeigniter upload
    $this->upload->do_upload('images');
}

What you can do is to not put any params in the do_upload() function. Like so:

$this->upload->do_upload();