Sending files using POST with HttpURLConnection

Question

Since the Android developers recommend to use the HttpURLConnection class, I was wondering if anyone can provide me with a good example on how to send a bitmap

Answer 1

The solution of Jaydipsinh Zala didn't work for me, I don't know why but it seems to be close to the solution.

So merging this one with the great solution and explanation of Mihai Todor, the result is this class that currently works for me. If it helps someone:

MultipartUtility2V.java

import java.io.*;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;
import java.nio.file.Files;

public class MultipartUtilityV2 {
    private HttpURLConnection httpConn;
    private DataOutputStream request;
    private final String boundary =  "*****";
    private final String crlf = "\r\n";
    private final String twoHyphens = "--";

    /**
     * This constructor initializes a new HTTP POST request with content type
     * is set to multipart/form-data
     *
     * @param requestURL
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public MultipartUtilityV2(String requestURL)
            throws IOException {

        // creates a unique boundary based on time stamp
        URL url = new URL(requestURL);
        httpConn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        httpConn.setUseCaches(false);
        httpConn.setDoOutput(true); // indicates POST method
        httpConn.setDoInput(true);

        httpConn.setRequestMethod("POST");
        httpConn.setRequestProperty("Connection", "Keep-Alive");
        httpConn.setRequestProperty("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
        httpConn.setRequestProperty(
                "Content-Type", "multipart/form-data;boundary=" + this.boundary);

        request =  new DataOutputStream(httpConn.getOutputStream());
    }

    /**
     * Adds a form field to the request
     *
     * @param name  field name
     * @param value field value
     */
    public void addFormField(String name, String value)throws IOException  {
        request.writeBytes(this.twoHyphens + this.boundary + this.crlf);
        request.writeBytes("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + name + "\""+ this.crlf);
        request.writeBytes("Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8" + this.crlf);
        request.writeBytes(this.crlf);
        request.writeBytes(value+ this.crlf);
        request.flush();
    }

    /**
     * Adds a upload file section to the request
     *
     * @param fieldName  name attribute in <input type="file" name="..." />
     * @param uploadFile a File to be uploaded
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public void addFilePart(String fieldName, File uploadFile)
            throws IOException {
        String fileName = uploadFile.getName();
        request.writeBytes(this.twoHyphens + this.boundary + this.crlf);
        request.writeBytes("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" +
                fieldName + "\";filename=\"" +
                fileName + "\"" + this.crlf);
        request.writeBytes(this.crlf);

        byte[] bytes = Files.readAllBytes(uploadFile.toPath());
        request.write(bytes);
    }

    /**
     * Completes the request and receives response from the server.
     *
     * @return a list of Strings as response in case the server returned
     * status OK, otherwise an exception is thrown.
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public String finish() throws IOException {
        String response ="";

        request.writeBytes(this.crlf);
        request.writeBytes(this.twoHyphens + this.boundary +
                this.twoHyphens + this.crlf);

        request.flush();
        request.close();

        // checks server's status code first
        int status = httpConn.getResponseCode();
        if (status == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
            InputStream responseStream = new
                    BufferedInputStream(httpConn.getInputStream());

            BufferedReader responseStreamReader =
                    new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(responseStream));

            String line = "";
            StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();

            while ((line = responseStreamReader.readLine()) != null) {
                stringBuilder.append(line).append("\n");
            }
            responseStreamReader.close();

            response = stringBuilder.toString();
            httpConn.disconnect();
        } else {
            throw new IOException("Server returned non-OK status: " + status);
        }

        return response;
    }
}

Answer 2

To upload file on server with some parameter using MultipartUtility in simple way.

MultipartUtility.java

public class MultipartUtility {

    private final String boundary;
    private static final String LINE_FEED = "\r\n";
    private HttpURLConnection httpConn;
    private String charset;
    private OutputStream outputStream;
    private PrintWriter writer;

    /**
     * This constructor initializes a new HTTP POST request with content type
     * is set to multipart/form-data
     *
     * @param requestURL
     * @param charset
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public MultipartUtility(String requestURL, String charset)
            throws IOException {
        this.charset = charset;

        // creates a unique boundary based on time stamp
        boundary = "===" + System.currentTimeMillis() + "===";

        URL url = new URL(requestURL);
        Log.e("URL", "URL : " + requestURL.toString());
        httpConn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        httpConn.setUseCaches(false);
        httpConn.setDoOutput(true); // indicates POST method
        httpConn.setDoInput(true);
        httpConn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type",
                "multipart/form-data; boundary=" + boundary);
        httpConn.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "CodeJava Agent");
        httpConn.setRequestProperty("Test", "Bonjour");
        outputStream = httpConn.getOutputStream();
        writer = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(outputStream, charset),
                true);
    }

    /**
     * Adds a form field to the request
     *
     * @param name  field name
     * @param value field value
     */
    public void addFormField(String name, String value) {
        writer.append("--" + boundary).append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.append("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + name + "\"")
                .append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.append("Content-Type: text/plain; charset=" + charset).append(
                LINE_FEED);
        writer.append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.append(value).append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.flush();
    }

    /**
     * Adds a upload file section to the request
     *
     * @param fieldName  name attribute in <input type="file" name="..." />
     * @param uploadFile a File to be uploaded
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public void addFilePart(String fieldName, File uploadFile)
            throws IOException {
        String fileName = uploadFile.getName();
        writer.append("--" + boundary).append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.append(
                "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + fieldName
                        + "\"; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"")
                .append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.append(
                "Content-Type: "
                        + URLConnection.guessContentTypeFromName(fileName))
                .append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.append("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary").append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.flush();

        FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(uploadFile);
        byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
        int bytesRead = -1;
        while ((bytesRead = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
            outputStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }
        outputStream.flush();
        inputStream.close();

        writer.append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.flush();
    }

    /**
     * Adds a header field to the request.
     *
     * @param name  - name of the header field
     * @param value - value of the header field
     */
    public void addHeaderField(String name, String value) {
        writer.append(name + ": " + value).append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.flush();
    }

    /**
     * Completes the request and receives response from the server.
     *
     * @return a list of Strings as response in case the server returned
     * status OK, otherwise an exception is thrown.
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public String finish() throws IOException {
        StringBuffer response = new StringBuffer();

        writer.append(LINE_FEED).flush();
        writer.append("--" + boundary + "--").append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.close();

        // checks server's status code first
        int status = httpConn.getResponseCode();
        if (status == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                    httpConn.getInputStream()));
            String line = null;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                response.append(line);
            }
            reader.close();
            httpConn.disconnect();
        } else {
            throw new IOException("Server returned non-OK status: " + status);
        }

        return response.toString();
    }
}

To upload you file along with parameters.

NOTE : put this code below in non-ui-thread to get response.

String charset = "UTF-8";
String requestURL = "YOUR_URL";

MultipartUtility multipart = new MultipartUtility(requestURL, charset);
multipart.addFormField("param_name_1", "param_value");
multipart.addFormField("param_name_2", "param_value");
multipart.addFormField("param_name_3", "param_value");
multipart.addFilePart("file_param_1", new File(file_path));
String response = multipart.finish(); // response from server.

Answer 3

This answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/33149413/6481542 got me 90% of the way with uploading large files to a development Django server, but I had to use setFixedLengthStreamingMode to make it worked. That requires setting the Content-Length before writing the content, thus requiring a fairly significant rewrite of the above answer. Here's my end result

public class MultipartLargeUtility {
    private final String boundary;
    private static final String LINE_FEED = "\r\n";
    private HttpURLConnection httpConn;
    private String charset;
    private OutputStream outputStream;
    private PrintWriter writer;
    private final int maxBufferSize = 4096;
    private long contentLength = 0;
    private URL url;

    private List<FormField> fields;
    private List<FilePart> files;

    private class FormField {
        public String name;
        public String value;

        public FormField(String name, String value) {
            this.name = name;
            this.value = value;
        }
    }

    private class FilePart {
        public String fieldName;
        public File uploadFile;

        public FilePart(String fieldName, File uploadFile) {
            this.fieldName = fieldName;
            this.uploadFile = uploadFile;
        }
    }

    /**
     * This constructor initializes a new HTTP POST request with content type
     * is set to multipart/form-data
     *
     * @param requestURL
     * @param charset
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public MultipartLargeUtility(String requestURL, String charset, boolean requireCSRF)
            throws IOException {
        this.charset = charset;

        // creates a unique boundary based on time stamp
        boundary = "===" + System.currentTimeMillis() + "===";
        url = new URL(requestURL);
        fields = new ArrayList<>();
        files = new ArrayList<>();

        if (requireCSRF) {
            getCSRF();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Adds a form field to the request
     *
     * @param name  field name
     * @param value field value
     */
    public void addFormField(String name, String value)
            throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
        String fieldContent = "--" + boundary + LINE_FEED;
        fieldContent += "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + name + "\"" + LINE_FEED;
        fieldContent += "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=" + charset + LINE_FEED;
        fieldContent += LINE_FEED;
        fieldContent += value + LINE_FEED;
        contentLength += fieldContent.getBytes(charset).length;
        fields.add(new FormField(name, value));
    }

    /**
     * Adds a upload file section to the request
     *
     * @param fieldName  name attribute in <input type="file" name="..." />
     * @param uploadFile a File to be uploaded
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public void addFilePart(String fieldName, File uploadFile)
            throws IOException {
        String fileName = uploadFile.getName();

        String fieldContent = "--" + boundary + LINE_FEED;
        fieldContent += "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + fieldName
                + "\"; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"" + LINE_FEED;
        fieldContent += "Content-Type: "
                + URLConnection.guessContentTypeFromName(fileName) + LINE_FEED;
        fieldContent += "Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary" + LINE_FEED;
        fieldContent += LINE_FEED;
        // file content would go here
        fieldContent += LINE_FEED;
        contentLength += fieldContent.getBytes(charset).length;
        contentLength += uploadFile.length();
        files.add(new FilePart(fieldName, uploadFile));
    }

    /**
     * Adds a header field to the request.
     *
     * @param name  - name of the header field
     * @param value - value of the header field
     */
    //public void addHeaderField(String name, String value) {
    //    writer.append(name + ": " + value).append(LINE_FEED);
    //    writer.flush();
    //}

    /**
     * Completes the request and receives response from the server.
     *
     * @return a list of Strings as response in case the server returned
     * status OK, otherwise an exception is thrown.
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public List<String> finish() throws IOException {
        List<String> response = new ArrayList<String>();
        String content = "--" + boundary + "--" + LINE_FEED;
        contentLength += content.getBytes(charset).length;

        if (!openConnection()) {
            return response;
        }

        writeContent();

        // checks server's status code first
        int status = httpConn.getResponseCode();
        if (status == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                    httpConn.getInputStream()));
            String line = null;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                response.add(line);
            }
            reader.close();
            httpConn.disconnect();
        } else {
            throw new IOException("Server returned non-OK status: " + status);
        }
        return response;
    }

    private boolean getCSRF()
            throws IOException {
        /// First, need to get CSRF token from server
        /// Use GET request to get the token
        CookieManager cookieManager = new CookieManager();
        CookieHandler.setDefault(cookieManager);
        HttpURLConnection conn = null;

        conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

        conn.setUseCaches(false); // Don't use a Cached Copy
        conn.setRequestMethod("GET");
        conn.setRequestProperty("Connection", "Keep-Alive");
        conn.getContent();
        conn.disconnect();

        /// parse the returned object for the CSRF token
        CookieStore cookieJar = cookieManager.getCookieStore();
        List<HttpCookie> cookies = cookieJar.getCookies();
        String csrf = null;
        for (HttpCookie cookie : cookies) {
            Log.d("cookie", "" + cookie);
            if (cookie.getName().equals("csrftoken")) {
                csrf = cookie.getValue();
                break;
            }
        }
        if (csrf == null) {
            Log.d(TAG, "Unable to get CSRF");
            return false;
        }
        Log.d(TAG, "Received cookie: " + csrf);

        addFormField("csrfmiddlewaretoken", csrf);
        return true;
    }

    private boolean openConnection()
            throws IOException {
        httpConn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        httpConn.setUseCaches(false);
        httpConn.setDoOutput(true);    // indicates POST method
        httpConn.setDoInput(true);
        //httpConn.setRequestProperty("Accept-Encoding", "identity");
        httpConn.setFixedLengthStreamingMode(contentLength);
        httpConn.setRequestProperty("Connection", "Keep-Alive");
        httpConn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type",
                "multipart/form-data; boundary=" + boundary);
        outputStream = new BufferedOutputStream(httpConn.getOutputStream());
        writer = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(outputStream, charset),
                true);
        return true;
    }

    private void writeContent()
            throws IOException {

        for (FormField field : fields) {
            writer.append("--" + boundary).append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + field.name + "\"")
                    .append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append("Content-Type: text/plain; charset=" + charset).append(
                    LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(field.value).append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.flush();
        }

        for (FilePart filePart : files) {
            String fileName = filePart.uploadFile.getName();
            writer.append("--" + boundary).append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(
                    "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + filePart.fieldName
                            + "\"; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"")
                    .append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(
                    "Content-Type: "
                            + URLConnection.guessContentTypeFromName(fileName))
                    .append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary").append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.flush();

            FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(filePart.uploadFile);
            int bufferSize = Math.min(inputStream.available(), maxBufferSize);
            byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize];
            int bytesRead = -1;
            while ((bytesRead = inputStream.read(buffer, 0, bufferSize)) != -1) {
                outputStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
            }
            outputStream.flush();
            inputStream.close();
            writer.append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.flush();
        }

        writer.append("--" + boundary + "--").append(LINE_FEED);
        writer.close();
    }
}

Usage is largely the same as in the above answer, but I've included CSRF support that Django uses by default with forms

boolean useCSRF = true;
MultipartLargeUtility multipart = new MultipartLargeUtility(url, "UTF-8",useCSRF);
multipart.addFormField("param1","value");
multipart.addFilePart("filefield",new File("/path/to/file"));
List<String> response = multipart.finish();
Log.w(TAG,"SERVER REPLIED:");
for(String line : response) {
    Log.w(TAG, "Upload Files Response:::" + line);
}

Answer 4

I haven't tested this, but you might try using PipedInputStream and PipedOutputStream. It might look something like:

final Bitmap bmp = … // your bitmap

// Set up Piped streams
final PipedOutputStream pos = new PipedOutputStream(new ByteArrayOutputStream());
final PipedInputStream pis = new PipedInputStream(pos);

// Send bitmap data to the PipedOutputStream in a separate thread
new Thread() {
    public void run() {
        bmp.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 100, pos);
    }
}.start();

// Send POST request
try {
    // Construct InputStreamEntity that feeds off of the PipedInputStream
    InputStreamEntity reqEntity = new InputStreamEntity(pis, -1);

    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost(url);
    reqEntity.setContentType("binary/octet-stream");
    reqEntity.setChunked(true);
    httppost.setEntity(reqEntity);
    HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
} catch (Exception e) {
    e.printStackTrace()
}

Answer 5

I actually found a better way to send files using HttpURLConnection using MultipartEntity

private static String multipost(String urlString, MultipartEntity reqEntity) {
    try {
        URL url = new URL(urlString);
        HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        conn.setReadTimeout(10000);
        conn.setConnectTimeout(15000);
        conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
        conn.setUseCaches(false);
        conn.setDoInput(true);
        conn.setDoOutput(true);

        conn.setRequestProperty("Connection", "Keep-Alive");
        conn.addRequestProperty("Content-length", reqEntity.getContentLength()+"");
        conn.addRequestProperty(reqEntity.getContentType().getName(), reqEntity.getContentType().getValue());

        OutputStream os = conn.getOutputStream();
        reqEntity.writeTo(conn.getOutputStream());
        os.close();
        conn.connect();

        if (conn.getResponseCode() == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
            return readStream(conn.getInputStream());
        }

    } catch (Exception e) {
        Log.e(TAG, "multipart post error " + e + "(" + urlString + ")");
    }
    return null;        
}

private static String readStream(InputStream in) {
    BufferedReader reader = null;
    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
    try {
        reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
        String line = "";
        while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
            builder.append(line);
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
        if (reader != null) {
            try {
                reader.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }
    return builder.toString();
} 

Assuming you are uploading an image with bitmap data:

    Bitmap bitmap = ...;
    String filename = "filename.png";
    ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 100, bos);
    ContentBody contentPart = new ByteArrayBody(bos.toByteArray(), filename);

    MultipartEntity reqEntity = new MultipartEntity(HttpMultipartMode.BROWSER_COMPATIBLE);
    reqEntity.addPart("picture", contentPart);
    String response = multipost("http://server.com", reqEntity);

And Voila! Your post data will contain picture field along with the filename and path on your server.

Answer 6

I tried the solutions above and none worked for me out of the box.

However http://www.baeldung.com/httpclient-post-http-request. Line 6 POST Multipart Request worked within seconds

public void whenSendMultipartRequestUsingHttpClient_thenCorrect() 
  throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
    CloseableHttpClient client = HttpClients.createDefault();
    HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost("http://www.example.com");

    MultipartEntityBuilder builder = MultipartEntityBuilder.create();
    builder.addTextBody("username", "John");
    builder.addTextBody("password", "pass");
    builder.addBinaryBody("file", new File("test.txt"),
      ContentType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM, "file.ext");

    HttpEntity multipart = builder.build();
    httpPost.setEntity(multipart);

    CloseableHttpResponse response = client.execute(httpPost);
    client.close();
}