What is a multipart HTTP POST and how to make it? (scribd)

Question

I'm trying to upload a file to scribd. It says: "The contents of the file to upload. This needs to be expressed as part of a multi-part HTTP POST"..

Anyone know what they mean about this?

It should look something like this: http://api.scribd.com/api?method=docs.upload&file=THE MULTIPART-HTTP-POST&api_key=API-KEY ?

Thank a lot, and sorry if this is the wrong place to ask such a questions :)

Solution 1

It's a way of breaking up the data in a POST request into different discrete types. It's also used quite often to break up emails into multiple attachments with mime types. You can read more about MIME in general (and specifically about multipart POST requests) here.

Solution 2

The relevant RFC for the HTML forms version of the multipart MIME format is RFC 1867