PHP $_FILES Array Normalizer

$_FILES in PHP is not a friendly array, especially when POSTing multiple files or using file inputs with nested names like layer[][file]. The PHP $_FILES Array Normalizer will normalize the $_FILES array to the following format:

[
	'files' => [
		0 => [
			'name' => 'file1.png',
			'type' => 'image/png',
			'tmp_name' => '/tmp/phpxbbHdC',
			'error' => 0,
			'size' => 11393,
		],
		1 => [
			'name' => 'file2.png',
			'type' => 'image/png',
			'tmp_name' => '/tmp/phpajPldE',
			'error' => 0,
			'size' => 11393,
		],
	],
]

And if you are using nested file inputs with names like layer[0][file] and layer[0][other][file], the format will be as follows:

[
	'layer' => [
		0 => [
			'file' => [
				0 => [
					'name' => 'file1.png',
					'type' => 'image/png',
					'tmp_name' => '/tmp/phpxbbHdC',
					'error' => 0,
					'size' => 11393,
				],
			],
			'other' => [
				'file' => [
					0 => [
						'name' => 'file1.png',
						'type' => 'image/png',
						'tmp_name' => '/tmp/phpxbbHdC',
						'error' => 0,
						'size' => 11393,
					],
				],
			],
		],
	],
]

Things to consider:

• The normalizer will treat all file inputs as if they were multiple. That means that the final files layer will always be an array of files, even if only one file was POSTed.
• Don't forget to add the multiple attribute and [] to the end of your input name when you want multiple files.

Usage

Install via composer:

composer require freddyouellette/php-files-normalizer

and in your php file:

// require composer autoloader
require_once __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';

// include the Normalizer namespace
use \freddyouellette\PhpFilesNormalizer\PhpFilesNormalizer;

// normalize the $_FILES array
$files = PhpFilesNormalizer::normalize($_FILES);

If you would rather merge the $_FILES array into an existing one, just pass the existing array as the second argument:

$files = ['other-data' => 12345];
$files = PhpFilesNormalizer::normalize($_FILES, $files);

This can be useful to normalize all data passed from the frontend to a single array. Then your backend controllers can be passed a single array of data instead of having a direct dependency between the controller and the data type it relies on.

$data = array_merge($_POST, $_GET);
$data = PhpFilesNormalizer::normalize($_FILES, $data);
// some controller which accepts data as an argument
$Controller->__invoke($data);

Contributing

I encourage all issues to be submitted through the Issues tab on GitHub. Pull requests are welcome.