File Upload Handling
Table of Contents
Overview
Build secure and robust file upload systems with validation, sanitization, virus scanning, efficient storage management, CDN integration, and proper file serving mechanisms across different backend frameworks.
When to Use
- Implementing file upload features
- Managing user-uploaded documents
- Storing and serving media files
- Implementing profile picture uploads
- Building document management systems
- Handling bulk file imports
Quick Start
Minimal working example:
# config.py
import os
class Config:
MAX_CONTENT_LENGTH = 50 * 1024 * 1024 # 50 MB
UPLOAD_FOLDER = 'uploads'
ALLOWED_EXTENSIONS = {'txt', 'pdf', 'png', 'jpg', 'jpeg', 'gif', 'docx', 'doc'}
UPLOAD_DIRECTORY = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), UPLOAD_FOLDER)
# file_service.py
import os
import mimetypes
import hashlib
import secrets
from werkzeug.utils import secure_filename
from datetime import datetime
import magic
import aiofiles
class FileUploadService:
def __init__(self, upload_dir, allowed_extensions, max_size=50*1024*1024):
self.upload_dir = upload_dir
self.allowed_extensions = allowed_extensions
self.max_size = max_size
self.mime = magic.Magic(mime=True)
// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)
Reference Guides
Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:
| Guide | Contents | |---|---| | Python/Flask File Upload | Python/Flask File Upload | | Node.js Express File Upload with Multer | Node.js Express File Upload with Multer | | FastAPI File Upload | FastAPI File Upload | | S3/Cloud Storage Integration | S3/Cloud Storage Integration |
Best Practices
✅ DO
- Validate file extensions and MIME types
- Check file size before processing
- Use secure filenames to prevent directory traversal
- Store files outside web root
- Implement virus scanning
- Use CDN for file delivery
- Generate signed URLs for direct access
- Log file upload/download events
- Implement access control checks
- Clean up temporary files
❌ DON'T
- Trust user-provided filenames
- Store files in web-accessible directories
- Allow arbitrary file types
- Skip virus scanning for uploaded files
- Expose absolute file paths
- Allow unlimited file sizes
- Ignore access control
- Use predictable file paths
- Store sensitive metadata in filenames
- Forget to validate file content