File Uploads using stored procedures

Question

Hello, I'm quite new here, but I have a question that I've been butting my head against for the past day. Here goes.
We need to upload a file using a stored procedure (PL/SQL procedure.)
The two things I have found that work are
1) Having oracle do the file handling (using bfiles) in the procedure
2) using an insert statement directly to upload the file contents into a blob.
The platform is php (Oracle instant client) and I will show some code examples.
1) is unworkable because Oracle will not have direct access to any files.
2) is fine, but we would prefer to use a procedure so as to abstract what exactly goes on and possibly other operations away from the php and the framework.
What worked:
1)
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE php_upload_file (file_name in varchar2, canonical_name in varchar2, owner in number, file_id IN OUT number)
AS
src_loc bfile:= bfilename('DOC_LOC',php_upload_file.file_name);
dest_loc BLOB;
begin
insert into files values(owner,canonical_name,empty_blob(),files_seq.nextval) returning files.data, files.file_id
into dest_loc, file_id;
dbms_lob.open(src_loc,DBMS_LOB.LOB_READONLY);
DBMS_LOB.OPEN(dest_loc, DBMS_LOB.LOB_READWRITE);
DBMS_LOB.LOADFROMFILE(
dest_lob => dest_loc
,src_lob => src_loc
,amount => DBMS_LOB.getLength(src_loc));
DBMS_LOB.CLOSE(dest_loc);
DBMS_LOB.CLOSE(src_loc);
COMMIT;
end;
'DOC_LOC' is a directory I've set up that the user has access to.
Interfacing with PHP this just looks like
oci_parse($conn,"BEGIN php_upload_file('{$uploadfilename}','{$propername}',{$ownerid},:file_id); END;");
Dead simple, right?
I also do a bind command to pull out 'file_id' so I know the id that was just inserted.
The other solution is
$contents = file_get_contents($_FILES["uploadedfile"]["tmp_name"]);
$lob = oci_new_descriptor($conn, OCI_D_LOB);
$stmt = oci_parse($conn,
"INSERT INTO files (employee_id, filename, data, file_id) VALUES(175,'"
.$_FILES["uploadedfile"]["name"].
"', empty_blob(), files_seq.nextval) RETURNING file_id, files.data INTO :file_id, :src_contents");
where :src_contents is binded to a lob and :file_id as before is binded to an INT:
oci_bind_by_name($stmt, ':src_contents', $lob, -1, OCI_B_BLOB);
oci_bind_by_name($stmt, ':file_id', $insert_id, -1, SQLT_INT);
oci_execute($stmt,OCI_DEFAULT);
In this case the last thing I do before the commit is
$lob->save($contents);
Both work fine, but what I need is this
$contents = file_get_contents($_FILES["uploadedfile"]["tmp_name"]);
$lob = oci_new_descriptor($conn, OCI_D_LOB);
$stmt = oci_parse($conn,"BEGIN do_upload_file(:src_contents,'{$propername}',{$ownerid},:file_id); END;");
oci_bind_by_name($stmt, ':src_contents', $lob, -1, OCI_B_BLOB);
oci_bind_by_name($stmt, ':file_id', $insert_id, -1, SQLT_INT);
oci_execute($stmt,OCI_DEFAULT);
$lob->save($contents);
oci_commit($conn);
this omits error conditions (such as on $lob->save ... etc.) it is simplified.
The content of the procedure I changed as follows, but it seems untestable.
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE do_upload_file (src_contents IN OUT blob, canonical_name in varchar2, owner in number, file_id IN OUT number)
AS
dest_loc BLOB;
begin
insert into files values(owner,canonical_name,empty_blob(),files_seq.nextval) returning files.data, files.file_id
into dest_loc, file_id;
dbms_lob.open(src_contents,DBMS_LOB.LOB_READONLY);
DBMS_LOB.OPEN(dest_loc, DBMS_LOB.LOB_READWRITE);
DBMS_LOB.COPY(dest_lob => dest_loc,
src_lob => src_contents
,amount => DBMS_LOB.getLength(src_contents));
DBMS_LOB.CLOSE(dest_loc);
DBMS_LOB.CLOSE(src_contents);
COMMIT;
end;
I don't get errors because I cannot figure out a way to run this procedure in my PL/SQL environment with valid data. (I can run it with a blank blob.)
But when I work out the order of what's going on, it doesn't make sense; the commit in the procedure is before the $lob->save(...) and thus it would never save the data... nonetheless it should at least create a record with an empty blob but it does not. What is wrong is beyond the error level that seems to be supported by PHP's oci_error function (unless I have not discovered how to turn all errors on?)
In any case I think the logic is wrong here, but I'm not experienced enough to figure out how.
To test it I would need to create a driver that loads an external file into a blob, and passes that blob into the procedure. Trouble is, even if I make a blob and initialize it with empty_blob() it treats it as an invalid blob for the purposes of the dbms_lob.copy procedure.
If someone has solved this problem, please let me know. I would love to be able to do the file upload with just a single procedure.

Answer 1

Thanks. In my estimation that is exactly the issue. But that doesn't help with a resolution.
The actual file size: 945,991 bytes
If Firefox is miscalculating the length (in Safari/Chrome 945991 and 946241 in Firefox), then Firefox is reporting erroneously and should be raised as a bug in Firefox, would you agree?