How to check if user has uploaded file in form validation

Hi All

I am writing my own module to create custom forms using the form api.

My forms have file upload fields and I would like to check if the user has entered a file name in the upload fields in the form validation function and not the submit function.

The #REQUIRED property won't work for us because the file upload field is required only when some other fields are filled.

The problem is in the validate function, $form_state['file1'], $form['file1']['#value'], _POST['file1']
and $file1 are all not available. No data returned even though user has entered a file name in the file1 field. In a normal php form, I would just need to test for $file1 to find out whether the user has entered anything in the file1 field.

Question: Is there anyway to check if the user has entered anything in the file upload field (i.e. '#type' = 'file') in the form validate function?

It is possible to use $file = file_save_upload in the form submit function to check if user has uploaded a file, but I would prefer to do it in the validate function.

It should be possible to check if user has entered anything in the file upload field in the Validated function because #REQUIRED is tested in the Validate function. (#REQUIRED won't work for me as mentioned above).

This issue may be similar to http://drupal.org/node/220944

Thank you very much in anticipation.

cmgui

function fxforms_3dprinterform() {
$form['#attributes'] = array(
'enctype' => 'multipart/form-data',
);
$form['file1'] = array(
'#type' => 'file',
'#size' => 24,
// '#required' => TRUE,
);

--

function fxforms_3dprinterform_validate($form, &$form_state) {
// all does not work
// $temp1 = $_POST['file1'];
// if ( $form['file1']['#value'] == '' ) {
// if ( trim($temp1) == '' ) {
// if ( trim($file1) == '' ) {
// if ($form_state['file1'] == '' ) {
// form_set_error('file1', t(' go to hell!'));
// }

}

function fxforms_3dprinterform_submit($form, &$form_state) {

$limits = array( 'extensions' => 'stl txt zip', 'file_size' => 100000000, 'user_size' => 0 );
$validators = array(
'file_validate_extensions' => array($limits['extensions']),
'file_validate_size' => array($limits['file_size'], $limits['user_size']),
);

// Save new file uploads.
if ( $file = file_save_upload('file1', $validators, file_directory_path())) {

$filedest = $file->timestamp . $user->name . $file->filename;
copy( $file->filepath, '/usr/local/www/drupal-6.6/sites/default/fxfiles/' . $filedest );
}
else
{
echo " nothing uploaded ";
exit;
}