Answers.
  1. This is as documented. For an uploaded file both param and upload return something that can be used as a filehandle. The difference is that someone trying to be mean to you can send "/etc/passwd" as a string, if you make the mistake of trusting param*( you may wind up displaying your own password file. But upload() will not fall for this.
  2. If you take the return from param() and use it as a string you will get the name of the file on the remote system. However the file has actually been spooled to a local temp file, and you are free to open a new file named whatever you want, read from the uploaded filehandle, and print to the new file. On 5.6.0 you should be able to do it something like this (untested): 
    my $in = $q->upload('uploaded_file');
my $save_as = "demo.txt";
open(my $out, "> $save_as") or die "Cannot write to '$save_as': $!";
print $out <$in>;
close($out);

    [download]
    Previous to 5.6.0 you couldn't use a scalar there, and would need to use Symbol and gensym a symbol for use.
Does that help?

In reply to Re (tilly) 1: problem changing name of uploaded file! by tilly
in thread problem changing name of uploaded file! by Anonymous Monk

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