Subject: web-based upload via WebDAV

From: Frank Lowney <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 07:27:54 -0500

Since there are numerous examples of HTTP 1.0 upload (one file at a time) from within a web page, I wondered if it is possible to use HTTP 1.1 WebDAV protocols to upload multiple files at a time from within a web page.  How would authentication be handled in such a case and could that be programmatically supplied since one may already have authenticated oneself to obtain the upload page in the first place?

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Dr. Frank Lowney  [email-masked]
    Director, Electronic Instructional Services, a unit of the
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From: John DeSoi <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 21:22:00 -0500

Frank,

On Mar 28, 2004, at 7:27 AM, Frank Lowney wrote:

> Since there are numerous examples of HTTP 1.0 upload (one file at a 
> time) from within a web page, I wondered if it is possible to use HTTP 
> 1.1 WebDAV protocols to upload multiple files at a time from within a 
> web page.  How would authentication be handled in such a case and 
> could that be programmatically supplied since one may already have 
> authenticated oneself to obtain the upload page in the first place?

I have not tried it in a while, but I doubt it will be possible to do 
this effectively from a web page. The user will still have to specify 
each and every file because the browser security settings are not going 
to allow you to programatically set file paths in a form. Even if you 
could, WebDAV would need to receive each file as a PUT request. I'm not 
aware of any standardized support for scripting this from a web page.

The closest thing I'm aware of is HTML editor built into Mozilla. You 
can create a page with included images and support files and Mozilla 
will upload the page and all related items using HTTP PUT. PUT is the 
the same mechanism used in WebDAV for storing documents.

Best,

John DeSoi, Ph.D.