CGI file upload script problems

**KevinADC** · Jun 24 '08, 06:39 PM

Your web host should have some instuctions on how to run cgi scripts on their servers. Since we do not know how the host is configured it is hard to make anything but very general suggestions:

upload the script in ASCII (text) mode
set permissions (chmod) to 755

generally you upload cgi scripts into the cgi-bin, not into a folder you create in your public_html folder, although that might be possible but you have to ask your web host.

**owz2008** · Jun 24 '08, 08:43 PM

Thanks for the reply Kevin,

I have set the permissions to 755 and I know what your saying about putting the script into the cgi-bin but the server admin told me to put it in a seperate folder in the public_html because pipex who the servers are with do not like them being stored there..

Can you see any errors in my script?

I want the images once uploaded to go into a folder called canvasimages in the public_html folder. is the path right in my script?

Also where will the form contact details go when the image and the form is submitted?

I will have another chat with the server administrator tomorrow to see what they say..

thanks again

**KevinADC** · Jun 24 '08, 10:33 PM

All those "?" in the code you ppsted make me think that your mac editor is throwing in lots of extra data into the file that should not be there. Perl scripts must be saved in plain text (ASCII) formatted files. Don't use any word processing formats. But I don't know crap about mac computers so can't really suggest what you should do.

**owz2008** · Jun 25 '08, 08:41 AM

Hello again Kevin, I typed the perl script into a windows notepad document on my pc and then saved that as a cgi file. I then uploaded that to the server.

Now when i submit the form i get the following error...

Software error:

Can't find string terminator "END_HTML" anywhere before EOF at upload.cgi line 50.

the line their referring to has the following code: print <<END HTML;

any ideas?

**owz2008** · Jun 25 '08, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by owz2008

Hello again Kevin, I typed the perl script into a windows notepad document on my pc and then saved that as a cgi file. I then uploaded that to the server.

Now when i submit the form i get the following error...

Software error:

Can't find string terminator "END_HTML" anywhere before EOF at upload.cgi line 50.

the line their referring to has the following code: print <<END HTML;

any ideas?

here is the script again with better spacing..

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT 

use strict; 
use CGI; 
use CGI::Carp qw ( fatalsToBrowser ); 
use File::Basename; 

$CGI::POST_MAX = 1024 * 5000; 
my $safe_filename_characters = "a-zA-Z0-9_.-"; 
my $upload_dir = "/public_html/canvasimages"; 

my $query = new CGI; 
my $filename = $query->param("photo"); 
my $email_address = $query->param("email_address"); 

if ( !$filename ) 
{ 
 print $query->header ( ); 
 print "There was a problem uploading your photo (try a smaller file)."; 
 exit; 
} 

my ( $name, $path, $extension ) = fileparse ( $filename, '\..*' ); 
$filename = $name . $extension; 
$filename =~ tr/ /_/; 
$filename =~ s/[^$safe_filename_characters]//g; 

if ( $filename =~ /^([$safe_filename_characters]+)$/ ) 
{ 
 $filename = $1; 
} 
else 
{ 
 die "Filename contains invalid characters"; 
} 

my $upload_filehandle = $query->upload("photo"); 

open ( UPLOADFILE, ">$upload_dir/$filename" ) or die "$!"; 
binmode UPLOADFILE; 

while ( <$upload_filehandle> ) 
{ 
 print UPLOADFILE; 
} 

close UPLOADFILE; 

print $query->header ( ); 
print <<END_HTML; 


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> 
 <head> 
   <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> 
   <title>Thanks!</title> 
   <style type="text/css"> 
     img {border: none;} 
   </style> 
 </head> 
 <body> 
   <p>Thanks for uploading your photo!</p> 
   <p>Your email address: $email_address</p> 
   <p>Your photo:</p> 
   <p><img src="/upload/$filename" alt="Photo" /></p> 
 </body> 
</html> 
END_HTML

**KevinADC** · Jun 25 '08, 05:04 PM

Replace this:

Code:

print <<END_HTML; 


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> 
 <head> 
   <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> 
   <title>Thanks!</title> 
   <style type="text/css"> 
     img {border: none;} 
   </style> 
 </head> 
 <body> 
   <p>Thanks for uploading your photo!</p> 
   <p>Your email address: $email_address</p> 
   <p>Your photo:</p> 
   <p><img src="/upload/$filename" alt="Photo" /></p> 
 </body> 
</html> 
END_HTML

replace with:

Code:

print qq{ 

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> 
 <head> 
   <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> 
   <title>Thanks!</title> 
   <style type="text/css"> 
     img {border: none;} 
   </style> 
 </head> 
 <body> 
   <p>Thanks for uploading your photo!</p> 
   <p>Your email address: $email_address</p> 
   <p>Your photo:</p> 
   <p><img src="/upload/$filename" alt="Photo" /></p> 
 </body> 
</html> 
};

Then you don't have to worry about your HERE docs being terminated properly.

**owz2008** · Jun 26 '08, 08:27 AM

Thanks Kevin will try that,

What if I want to place a link in the perl script which links to a page for example www.icomworks.c o.uk/canvaspayform2. html instead of putting the actual html within the script.. how is this done?

thanks again, I appreciate the help..

Owain

**owz2008** · Jun 26 '08, 09:01 AM

I tried replacing the code and I know get a different error?

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguratio n and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@icomw orks.co.uk and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

I can't seem to get anywhere with this... my script only includes the fields for the email and the actual file object, but my html form actually has several more fields. I only used the two fields in the script just to try and get it working. could this be why my script is not loading?

(im clutching at straws here) :(

**KevinADC** · Jun 26 '08, 06:07 PM

Make sure to upload the script in ASCII (text) transfer mode and set the persmissions to 755 if necessary. The code you posted with the recommend change I made reports no syntax errors.

**owz2008** · Jun 26 '08, 07:12 PM

I'm saving the script into notepad on a p.c, how do i go about making sure its in ASCII format? I have also set the permissions to 755...

**KevinADC** · Jun 26 '08, 07:21 PM

Originally posted by owz2008

I'm saving the script into notepad on a p.c, how do i go about making sure its in ASCII format? I have also set the permissions to 755...

Notepad saves in ASCII by default. I am talking about the transfer mode though, not the file format. If you use an FTP program to transfer the file from your PC to your website makes sure the file transfer mode is set to ASCII (or text) mode. See your FTP programs help files concerning the "transfer mode".

**owz2008** · Jun 26 '08, 07:26 PM

Im wondering if perhaps the script is not finding perl at the location stated?

Also

What happens if the file upload path is incorrect? would that crash the script?

I've double checked the html and the form element's names (photo + email_address) both match the script...

Running out of ideas...

**KevinADC** · Jun 26 '08, 07:46 PM

Originally posted by owz2008

Im wondering if perhaps the script is not finding perl at the location stated?

Also

What happens if the file upload path is incorrect? would that crash the script?

I've double checked the html and the form element's names (photo + email_address) both match the script...

Running out of ideas...

Your other script appeared to work but could not find the here doc terminator. So the path to perl should be OK.

If the fileupload path is not correct::

Code:

open ( UPLOADFILE, ">$upload_dir/$filename" ) or die "$!";

the "die" command in the above line will be triggered and you will see an error message about unable to open the file or directory, you can change it to:

Code:

open ( UPLOADFILE, ">$upload_dir/$filename" ) or die "Can't open <$upload_dir/$filename> : $!";

that way you can see what $upload_dir/$filename is being interpolated as if the error occurs there, but I don't think so. Your script appears to be unable to compile, which makes me think the transfer mode was wrong.

Check the server error logs if possible. Most hosts allow you to see the error logs, either via FTP or via a control panel your host has installed for you to use.

**KevinADC** · Jun 26 '08, 07:52 PM

a side note, even if you get it to work the image will not display because the url to the image is wrong in the html code:

Code:

<img src="/upload/$filename" alt="Photo" />

should be:

Code:

<img src="../canvasimages/$filename" alt="Photo" />

CGI file upload script problems

CGI file upload script problems

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