How to test Perl CGI script for file upload from the command line?

Question

I have a Perl script with a call my $file_handle = $cgi->upload('uploaded_file'). Is there a way to test this script from command line before deploying to the web server? I looked at (How can I send POST and GET data to a Perl CGI script via the command line?) and other questions, but could not find any information for passing a file for upload from the command line. Thanks in advance for the help.

Please elaborate by providing the said script. What OS are you using, which command line? Thanks. — Ahmad Bilal
– Ahmad Bilal, Commented Jun 22, 2018 at 3:43
Do you have to use Perl to actually perform the upload? If not then the easiest thing to do is probably use curl - as in curl -T file https://yoursite.com/your-script.cgi. — David Collins
– David Collins, Commented Jun 22, 2018 at 7:55
@David that requires them to already run the program with a web server. They want to run the code without a web server. — simbabque
– simbabque, Commented Jun 22, 2018 at 8:39

daxim · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-22 08:53:12Z

3

A file upload is just another POST request! See DEBUGGING in CGI.pm. The program is index.pl, the file to upload is somefile.bin and the form field name is uploaded_file:

REQUEST_METHOD=POST \
CONTENT_TYPE='multipart/form-data; boundary=xYzZY' \
perl index.pl < <(
    perl -MHTTP::Request::Common=POST -e'
        print POST(
            undef,
            Content_Type => "form-data",
            Content => [ uploaded_file => [ "somefile.bin" ]]
        )->content
    '
)

answered Jun 22, 2018 at 8:53

daxim

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4 Comments

simbabque Over a year ago

Can you explain the < <(...) please? Why is there a space?

daxim Over a year ago

<() is tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/process-sub.html (avoids temporary file or shell var) ; < redirects from file descriptor into the process stdin. Edit: just noticed, a simple pipe will also do.

BReddy Over a year ago

This worked great. Thank you @daxim. I see Content_Type set to "form-data" in this POST method, but when I dump $cgi, I see: 'Content-Disposition' => 'form-data; name="uploaded_file"; filename="wrapper_sbs.bin"', 'Content-Type' => 'application/octet-stream' If I change the uploaded file extension to ".sh", the Content-Type is becoming 'application/x-sh'. Is there any way to specify the Content-Type without regard to the file extension?

daxim Over a year ago

Sure, that's in the documentation, scroll down to Form-based File Upload.

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