Description:
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Since PHP 4.3 was released uploaded file details no longer appear in $_REQUEST.

Apart from breaking compatability for scripts that required this information to appear in $_REQUEST it also creates an unecessary special case.

Before this change you were able to have all form element values appear in the one location. In my view the point of the $_REQUEST variable was so you could have ALL form request information in the one location whether it was submitted via a GET, POST, or COOKIE. That is still the case except for the "file" element. PHP scripters now have a special case to deal with.

In some of my own code I have created some generic libraries I use a lot. They consist of a group of classes that describe each type of HTML form element. To keep things simple I have a base class that all other form elements inherit from. This base class contains all the code common to all form elements. I believe this is one of the objectives of OO programming.

However, I now have a special case in the "file" element. Code that previously could of been done in the parent class must now be overridden and recoded.

Sure this may not be a big deal, but it's messy, and uneccessary.

The following is a quote from your own manual about the _REQUEST variable:
"Variables provided to the script via *any* user input mechanism"