OB-perl: Archive::Extract may be useful.

yes, thanks, i think this may be the way to go.

nosbod, I have struggled with this myself and believe the limitation is in the HTML enctype="multipart/form-data" capability. My only "solution" is to offer the user a bunch of <input type="file"... fields on the form and then loop through my upload function in my Perl. I've seen several other sites do this as well, often asking for the number of files to upload first and then presenting as many file fields on a refreshed form.

OT: I also find it interesting that I can do nothing with this field on the client side, pre-server validation with javascript for e.g.

OT: I also find it interesting that I can do nothing with this field on the client side, pre-server validation with javascript for e.g.

I too have been bitten by this, but believe me it's a good idea. If this were not true, then any website you go to with Javascript turned on could have an invisible frame with a form and a file input button. Then a Javascript function could set the value to a known file location and submit it, and presto, some vital file from your hard drive has been whisked off to a server you don't know. I guess it could be less dangerous if it were read-only from scripts but even still...

Even if it's read-only, it could potentially give the webpage at least knowledge of your file tree. And this is sometimes too much information.

a Javascript function could set the value to a known file location and submit it, and presto, some vital file from your hard drive has been whisked off to a server you don't know.

This hypothetical is no different from what theoretically could happen with the current DOM-integrated file upload form element. As it happens, secure modern JS implementations do the right thing and do not allow the behavior you describe. I am no big JS apologist but I happen to be reading O'Reilly's "Javascript: The Definitive Guide" and this specific issue was just covered.

I would welcome adding directory-upload functionality to client-side JS.

1. a file selector panel that copies the files to a temp directory
2. a tar-gzip-er,
   and then,
3. an upload-the-tgz-file button on a MIME multi-part/form-data page

<form action="upload.pl" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="File" name="file">
</form>
[download]

#!/usr/bin/perl

use CGI;
use Archive::Zip qw( :ERROR_CODES :CONSTANTS );

  my $q = new CGI;

  my $save_dir = "/home/user/www/upload_dir";
  my $file = $q->param("file");


  open(OUTFILE, ">$save_dir/file.zip") || die "can't create file: $!";
  while (read($file, $buffer, 1024)) { print OUTFILE $buffer; }
  close(OUTFILE);
  chmod (0666, "$save_dir/file.zip");


  my $file_patch = $save_dir . "/file.zip";
  my $zip = Archive::Zip->new($file_patch);
  my @files = $zip->members();
  
  foreach (@files) {
    my $unzip_file = $_->fileName;
    $zip->extractMember($unzip_file);

    if ($zip->extractMember($unzip_file) != 0) {
      die print "Extraction of $file failed: $!";
    }
  }
[download]

1. Use a Zip tool and upload one file.
2. Use more than one FILE field but then you lose directory structure.
3. Use a tool like Rad Upload (requires Java on the client and I think costs $20).

He's going to have to zip them up I think