Manually setting $_FILES values? (Trying to upload from URI and want to use existing code)

Question

I'm trying to add to Kusaba X, the imageboard script, a way to upload files from remote locations.

The class does a lot of checks on $_FILES['imagefile']['name'] and $_FILES['imagefile']['size'], want to reuse them for a file upload from remote URI. In upload.class.php I have a variable containing the URI of the pic I want to upload. I don't want to rewrite it all of make a long bunch of if/elses or practically copy that code, was thinking if there was a way to use them as they are?

Tried to ($imgURI is the http:// location of the file):

$_FILES['imagefile']['name'] = $imgURI;

and

$imagefile_name = fopen($imgURI,"rb");
$_FILES['imagefile']['name'] = $imagefile_name;

but no luck.

I could make a master variable on which all checks are run and make a big find and replace, but what should it contain?

Hope the question is clear enough, it's been a while since I did any PHP so I might be missing something obvious. Thank you for any ideas/thoughts on this

Answer 1

$_FILES['imagefile']['name'] contains the name of the file on the client PC, which is usually just used as a hint when naming the permanent file on the local system. The element of $_FILES that contains the name of a file that can be read is $_FILES['imagefile']['tmp_name'].

However, this is generally expected to be a local filename. It's usually used in code like move_uploaded_file($_FILES['imagefile']['tmp_name'], $permanent_file). This is basically just renaming the temporary file, and won't work with a URL.