Replace special characters before the file is uploaded using PHP

Question

I was wondering if it is possible to change the name of the file to be uploaded. I mean what I am trying to do is that, the user uploads a file which may have some special characters like special characters in some European languages.

What I am planning to do is that before using the move_uploaded_file command is it possible to change/preg_replace the special characters with normal characters, so that the file is uploaded and stored with the new name which has only normal characters.

It's possible, yes. What have you tried? – Madara's Ghost Mar 23 '12 at 12:15 — Madara's Ghost, Mar 23 '12 at 12:15

472084 · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-14T09:31:50.247

31

// Get the original file name from $_FILES
$file_name= $_FILES['file']['name'];

// Remove any characters you don't want
// The below code will remove anything that is not a-z, 0-9 or a dot.
$file_name = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9.]/", "", $file_name);

// Get the location of the folder to upload into
$location = 'path/to/dir/';

// Use move_uploaded_file()
move_uploaded_file($_FILES["file"]["tmp_name"], $location.$file_name);

edited Sep 14 '15 at 09:31

answered Mar 23 '12 at 12:16

472084

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@472084, You have solved my so long problem with special characters in Zip file and under sub directories or files. Great. :) – Smile Sep 04 '13 at 07:59
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this works great, but you have to add the dot too for the file extension. $file_name = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9.]/", "", $file_name); – Alex Angelico Aug 20 '14 at 15:43
it works but didn't change/rename the file name on path location – jned29 Oct 22 '14 at 08:01
Note that depending on your use case, you _may_ wish to remove the dots as well, just in case someone tries `../../../passwd`. It probably doesn't matter though. – starbeamrainbowlabs Oct 19 '15 at 07:00

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:03

3

try to use this bro

   $result = iconv("UTF-8", "ASCII//TRANSLIT", $text);

to know more visit how to replace special characters with the ones they're based on in PHP?

edited May 23 '17 at 12:03

Community

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answered Mar 23 '12 at 12:16

joni_demon

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score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 08 '15 at 19:26

Also you can use a function for special characters like this:

function safename($theValue)
{
    $_trSpec = array(
        'Ç' => 'C', 
        'Ğ' => 'G', 
        'İ' => 'I',
        'Ö' => 'O', 
        'Ş' => 'S', 
        'Ü' => 'U',
        'ç' => 'c', 
        'ğ' => 'g', 
        'ı' => 'i',
        'i' => 'i',
        'ö' => 'o', 
        'ş' => 's', 
        'ü' => 'u',
    );
    $enChars = array_values($_trSpec);
    $trChars = array_keys($_trSpec);
    $theValue = str_replace($trChars, $enChars, $theValue); 
    $theValue=preg_replace("@[^A-Za-z0-9\-_.\/]+@i","-",$theValue);
    $theValue=strtolower($theValue);
    return $theValue;
}

Be carefull about allow . for file extension.

And then change your original temp file name,

$tempFile = $_FILES['Filedata']['tmp_name'];
$targetFile = safename($targetFile);

$location = 'path/to/dir/';
move_uploaded_file($_FILES["file"]["tmp_name"], $location.$targetFile);

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 23 '12 at 12:17

You can get the original filename for an uploaded file from $_FILES, and you can create your "special" version by replacing characters in it with strtr (which sounds as the best match for this case), str_replace, preg_replace or any other string processing function.

The best approach depends on what exactly you want to do.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 23 '12 at 12:17

0

You could do it like this, write a simple function strip_special_chars() to replace characters you want in a string

$tmp_name = $_FILES["file"]["tmp_name"];
$name = strip_special_chars($tmp_name);
move_uploaded_file($name, "path/to/dir/");

answered Mar 23 '12 at 12:17

slash197

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Replace special characters before the file is uploaded using PHP

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