April 5, 2011

What are the difficulties/issues to consider when allowing ZIP file uploads?

Question by Edward Tanguay

I allow PDF files to be uploaded to my site (PHP).

I would like to offer the ability to also allow .zip files which contain PDF files in directories so it is easier for users to simply zip a directory and upload one file instead of uploading multiple zip files individual.

For those of you who offer a .zip file upload feature to your (PHP) website, what are the technical, security, and other issues you have faced?

Answer by Starx

AFAIK, php can handle zip files pretty efficiently. Difficulties/Issues that I can think of is, while accessing the file where We need to extract the zip first, and then retrieve the actual needed file. Due to that reason, extracting a zip, might consume additional amount of server time, depending on the size of the file itself.

Where As, during uploads, I do not suppose there is any difficulties or issues specially emphasized on zip types.

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