I recently implemented SWFUpload for a very large company that hosts their site on a number of Java application servers behind loadbalancers. The loadbalancers REQUIRE that cookies be sent with each request (including file uploads) in order to match the user to the correct application server to maintain their session. Long story short, we were only able to use SWFUpload for IE users.
Since this client is a very large company, they were able to get Adobe on the phone and ask why the FileReference.upload() method that SWFUpload currently uses doesn't properly send cookie data in browsers other than IE. Adobe said that they can't fix the bug with FileReference.upload() but that in Flash 10 there is a new function called FileReference.load() that will allow the programmer to load the file into the flash application and manually set the cookie headers and fix the cookie bug in browsers other than IE.
My client is considering hiring us to research whether the FileReference.load() function will solve their problems for non-IE users. My question for the SWFUpload team is "have you considered the approach of using FileReference.load() instead of FileReference.upload()?" If so, have you had any success with it?
We are considering starting with the 2.2.0 beta ActionScript source and researching whether we can refactor the upload functionality to use FileReference.load() instead of FileReference.upload(). It would be great to get feedback from the SWFUpload team on whether we should attempt this or not.
Thanks for your time and attention to this.
-Damien Filiatrault
November 25, 2008 - 10:06pm
We've only looked at it in the most superficial levels. From what we can tell (not having actually tried anything). Is that calling load() will load the file into memory which is not suitable for large file uploads (or a general purpose uploader).
The second problem is that the byte array loaded is read-only. The file cannot be modified and then uploaded using the FileReference APIs. You would have to use the Socket APIs and roll your own HTTP client.