can enctype="Multipart/Form-Data" always be used on a form?

[Stimp]

I have an asp.net page with a form and several <INPUT type=file> input
fields so that I can upload images via the form.

I also have about 30 other standard dropdownlists and text boxes as part
of this page that are submitted to a database when the 'UPLOAD' button
is clicked.

My question is this: does having enctype="multipart/form-data" on the
form affect the standard text input box data in anyway, or can I always
have it there?

If so, how exactly does it affect the data?

If not, then would it, in theory, always be possible to have this
enctype on ALL forms regardless of whether you use <INPUT type=file>
fields or not on a page (i.e. if you only had a dropdownlist on the
page)

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Karl Seguin [MVP]]

There's overhead. I *believe* each form field comes with a lot more data -
it isn't just a key=>value pair anymore (although that's what it looks like
in the end with Request.Form). Each field has extra data such as
content-length, character set and such.

In reality it probably isn't a big deal...when everyone was on a 14.4 modem
and pages were smaller than 10k it was pretty significant...now all that
overhead is likely smaller than your header image

Download fiddler (free) from http://fiddlertool.com/fiddler/ and do your own
testing.

Karl