Automated file upload using IE, without user interaction

To upload specific file using VBS/ASP with client-side compression see Zlib class of ScriptUtilities library and its upload sample.

There are many samples which lets you accept uploaded files from multipart/form-data forms with <input type=file> in ASP on this site (See home page of Pure ASP file upload with progress).
But what to do if you want to upload some specific file without user interaction? For example, you have a next form:

 <Form Action=http://127.0.0.30/util/up/free/upload.asp
  Method=Post ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data">
  <Input Type=File Name=FileField>
  <Input Type=Submit>
 </Form>

Next VBA code simulates the same submit of the form (upload of file) using IE and VBA. You can use the code in VisualBasic 5 and 6 or in Excel, Word and Access.

You can use ScriptUtils.ASPForm to accept uploaded files in ASP. ScriptUtils.ASPForm contains hi-performance, low resources consumption algorithm which can accept up to 2GB of data.

UploadFile "http://127.0.0.30/util/up/free/upload.asp", _
  "F:\work\Pstruh\Articles\upload\xx", "FileField"

'******************* upload - begin
'Upload file using input type=file
Sub UploadFile(DestURL As String, FileName As String, _
  Optional ByVal FieldName As String = "File")
  Dim sFormData As String, d As String
  
  'Boundary of fields.
  'Be sure this string is Not In the source file
  Const Boundary As String = "---------------------------0123456789012"

  'Get source file As a string.
  sFormData = GetFile(FileName)
  
  'Build source form with file contents
  d = "--" + Boundary + vbCrLf
  d = d + "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=""" + FieldName + """;"
  d = d + " filename=""" + FileName + """" + vbCrLf
  d = d + "Content-Type: application/upload" + vbCrLf + vbCrLf
  d = d + sFormData
  d = d + vbCrLf + "--" + Boundary + "--" + vbCrLf
  
  'Post the data To the destination URL
  IEPostStringRequest DestURL, d, Boundary
End Sub

'sends URL encoded form data To the URL using IE
Sub IEPostStringRequest(URL As String, FormData As String, Boundary As String)
  'Create InternetExplorer
  Dim WebBrowser: Set WebBrowser = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
  
  'You can uncoment Next line To see form results
  'WebBrowser.Visible = True
   
  'Send the form data To URL As POST request
  Dim bFormData() As Byte
  ReDim bFormData(Len(FormData) - 1)
  bFormData = StrConv(FormData, vbFromUnicode)

  WebBrowser.Navigate URL, , , bFormData, _
    "Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=" + Boundary + vbCrLf

  Do While WebBrowser.busy
'    Sleep 100
    DoEvents
  Loop
  WebBrowser.Quit
End Sub

'read binary file As a string value
Function GetFile(FileName As String) As String
  Dim FileContents() As Byte, FileNumber As Integer
  ReDim FileContents(FileLen(FileName) - 1)
  FileNumber = FreeFile
  Open FileName For Binary As FileNumber
    Get FileNumber, , FileContents
  Close FileNumber
  GetFile = StrConv(FileContents, vbUnicode)
End Function
'******************* upload - end

Copyright and use this code

The source code on this page and other samples at http://www.motobit.com/tips/ are a free code, you can use it as you want: copy it, modify it, use it in your products, ...

If you use this code, please:

1. Leave the author note in the source.

2. Link this sample from you page.

<A
 Href="http://www.motobit.com/tips/detpg_uploadvbaie/"
 Title="Lets you send file from a
	client to www server over
	http connection using IE. The
	file is sent as a
	result of type=file form field."
>Automated file upload using IE, without user interaction - VBA</A>

IISTracer - IIS ISAPI real-time monitor IISTracer is a real-time monitoring tool for Microsoft IIS, which will show/log you what is happenning on IIS server right now. It let's you reveal problems with long-running scripts (.asp, .cgi, cfm...), hang-up states and low resource situations and lets you stop long-running requests (uploads/downloads).	ActiveX User account Manager - Set of simple objects for creating, deleting, and managing user accounts, groups, servers and domains in the Windows NT environment.
Active log file - Hi-performance text file logging for ASP/VBS/VBA applications. Lets you create daily/weekly/monthly log files with variable number of logged values and extra timing and performance info.	ActiveX windows registry editor - Intuitive, easy to use COM interface to windows registry. Set of classes to read/enumerate/modify windows registry keys and values from ASP, VBS and T-SQL.
ActiveX/ASP Multi Dictionary object - Free-threaded hi-speed dictionary algorithm with unique/nonunique keys (map/multimap). Connect to another dictionary object in the same process. Lock and Unlock methods to synchronize tasks (application scope). Share ASP Application/Session objects.	Export DBF/MDB from ASP - Conversion from recordset to MDB/DBF. Direct binary output of MDB or DBF files from ASP pages with one row of code.
Pure-ASP upload - lets you upload files using Pure ASP VBS code (using multipart/form-data and input type=file).	ByteArray - Works with safearray binary data (VT_UI1 \| VT_ARRAY) - save/restore binary data from disk, find, work with code pages, convert to string/hexstring(SQL).
WebChecker - Checks http, https, ftp and gopher internet connections in regular intervals. Lets you monitor web site functionality (uptime). Enables restart or notification on problems.	HTTPLog ISAPI filter - Lets you log incomming/outgoing http header and document data to separate files. Monitor of IIS service input/output.

Motobit.com

MOTOBIT.COMAutomated file upload using IE, without user interaction - VBA

See also

Copyright and use this code