Passing a JSON file to a php server and then save the data from it into a Mysql DB

Question

As the tittle says i'm coding a web app as part of a school project. My goal is for someone to upload a json file and save some data of it in a table on Mysql for further functionallity in the app.

My question is how exaclty can you pass a JSON file to PHP and then parse it from there as to store the wanted data to the DB. I tried sending it with the help of Jquery fileupload as the json files may be quite large and on the php side i used the function file_get_contents but i had no luck with it.

Here is my javascript code :

$(document).ready(function () {
        $("#submitupload").click(function(){
            var files = $("#files");
            $("#uploadedfile").fileupload({
                url: 'upload.php',
                dataType: 'json',
                autoUpload: false
            }).on('fileuploadadd', function (e, data) {
                var fileTypeAllowed = /.\.(json)$/i;
                var fileName = data.originalFiles[0]['name'];
                var fileSize = data.originalFiles[0]['size'];
                console.log(data);
                if (!fileTypeAllowed.test(fileName)){
                    $("#error").html('Only json files are allowed');
                }else
                data.submit();
            }).on('fileuploaddone', function (e , data){
                var msg = data.jqXHR.responseJSON.msg;
                $("#error").html(msg);
            }).on('fileuploadprogress', function (e,data){
                var progress = parseInt(data.loaded / data.total * 100, 10 );
                $("#progress").html("Completed: " + progress + "%");
            })
})
})

And here is the PHP :

<?php
include_once ('connection.php');

if (isset($_FILES['uploadingfile'])){

    $file = $_FILES['uploadingfile'];


    $data = file_get_contents($file);

    $array = json_decode($data, true );

    foreach( $array as $row){
        $sql = "INSERT INTO locations(timestamp) VALUES ('".$row["timestampMs"]."')";
        mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
    }
    $msg = array("msg" => "times ok ");
    exit(json_encode($msg));
}

Noticed the error in file_get_contents() that says that the $file variable is an array not a string so i tried to pass the $_FILES variable as an argument with no luck again.

Is this the correct way to way to do it and if yes what am i missing or should i use another approach?

Thanks for the long read and your time in advance ! Sorry if any of this sounds stupid but im new to PHP .

You have to copy the file to a location where you have permission to read it, using `move_uploaded_file()`. — Gabriel, Mar 26 '20 at 19:57
FYI this is absolutely not the way to insert data into a database, ever. You're wide open to SQL injection attacks, not to mention insertion failures that are going to happen because your data contains quotes. Use parameterized queries to get around this problem, by fundamentally separating the data from the query. — Brad, Mar 26 '20 at 20:33
would you be so kind as to point me to an example about parameterized quaries @Brad? — Dimitris Markantonatos, Mar 26 '20 at 22:02
https://stackoverflow.com/a/60496/362536 https://stackoverflow.com/a/36366839/362536 — Brad, Mar 26 '20 at 22:22

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 26 '20 at 19:57

1

$_FILES['uploadingfile'] is an array with several pieces of information about the uploaded file. So you need to use:

$file = $_FILES['uploadingfile']['tmp_name'];

to get the filename where the data is stored.

See Handling File Uploads for full details.

answered Mar 26 '20 at 19:57

Barmar

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Passing a JSON file to a php server and then save the data from it into a Mysql DB

1 Answers1