PHP upload file using PUT instead of POST

Question

I read something about this on PHP docs, but it's not clear to me:

1. Do the most widely used browsers (IE, FF, Chrome, Safari, Opera, ...) support this PUT method to upload files?

2. What HTML should I write to make the browser call the server via a PUT request? I mean do I need to write a FORM with an INPUT file field and just replace the attribute method="POST"with method="PUT"?

3. On the PHP docs (link above) they say a PUT request is much simpler than a POST request when uploading file, along with this advantage, what other advantages/disadvanatges do the PUT has got compared to the POST?

Answer 1

The PUT method cannot be used from a <form>. MSIE does not support it through the user GUI at all. You can however use XMLHttpRequest. It seems to be defined in the standard and WHATWG / HTML5. My browser (Opera) obviously likes it.

http://old.mnot.net/javascript/xmlhttprequest/ IE might work too, as a short Google search suggests. And Firefox looks fine. Not checked Chrome or Webkit.

Server-site you need a specially designated script to handle an incoming PUT request. Look into the Apache docs. A mod_rewrite rule might usually do. The genral adavantage of PUT is that there is no file encoding / marshalling into a multipart/* mime type required. In theory this allows uploading larger files more reliably. Allthough if you use PHP, it won't help you much. It's meant for Webservers with WebDAV support and/or direct filesystem write access. (Apache can save uploaded files itself, if you use that.)

Answer 2

I think the method is supported by most major browsers, but you can't account for every browser and other client that is out there. From a cursory look at the user contributed notes, this sometimes even needs server-side configuration to work.

Also, handling any additional form values you may want to send along with your file becomes more difficult.

I wouldn't use it. Way too much possible hassle for little actual gain.