Sending an uploaded UIImage to server as PNG file - ios

Question

I'm trying to send an uploaded image to server. I'm getting the image from photos successfully, and I'm attaching it to a UIImageView in ViewController. Now I need to send this image to server along with other data. I'm able to send all data successfully except the image.
Here is my func:
func placeOrder(withOrder: Order) {
let returnedJobId: String? = UserDefaults.standard.object(forKey: "jobId") as? String
let returnedOrderPrice: String? = UserDefaults.standard.object(forKey: "orderPrice") as? String
let formatter = DateFormatter()
formatter.dateFormat = "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"
let currentDateTime = formatter.string(from: Date())
let selectedImage = imagePlaceHolder.image!
let uploadedFile = selectedImage.jpegData(compressionQuality: 0.5)
DispatchQueue.main.async {
let date = self.chosenTimeDateTextFieldDisplay.text!
let address = self.addressField.text!
let phone = self.phoneField.text!
let comments = self.commentsEntryView.text!
let file = uploadedFile
let jobId = returnedJobId!
let price = returnedOrderPrice!
let headers = [
"content-type" : "multipart/form-data",//application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
"cache-control": "no-cache",
"postman-token": "dded3e97-77a5-5632-93b7-dec77d26ba99"
]
let user = CoreDataFetcher().returnUser()
let provider = user.provider_id
let userID = user.id
let userType = user.user_type
let postData = NSMutableData(data: "data={\"user_type\":\"\(userType)\",\"job_id\":\"\(jobId)\",\"user_id\":\"\(userID)\",\"provider_id\":\"\(provider)\",\"order_placing_time\":\"\(currentDateTime)\",\"order_start_time\":\"\(date)\",\"order_address\":\"\(address)\",\"order_phone\":\"\(phone)\",\"order_comments\":\"\(comments)\",\"order_price\":\"\(price)\",\"$_FILES\":\"\(file!)\"}".data(using: String.Encoding.utf8)!)
let request = NSMutableURLRequest(url: NSURL(string: "http://Api/v2/placeOrder")! as URL,
cachePolicy: .useProtocolCachePolicy,
timeoutInterval: 10.0)
request.httpMethod = "POST"
request.allHTTPHeaderFields = headers
request.httpBody = postData as Data
let session = URLSession.shared
let dataTask = session.dataTask(with: request as URLRequest, completionHandler: { (data, response, error) -> Void in
if (error != nil) {
print(error!)
} else {
if let dataNew = data, let responseString = String(data: dataNew, encoding: .utf8) {
print(responseString)
DispatchQueue.main.async {
do {
let fetcher = CoreDataFetcher()
let json = try JSON(data: data!, options: .allowFragments)
let answer = json["answer"]
let status = json["status"]
let orderID = answer.int!
if status == "ok" {
print("Status is OK")
}
fetcher.addOrderID(orderId: orderID, toOrder: withOrder)
print("Order id has been saved!")
} catch {
print("Order ID Counldn't be Saved!")
}
}
}
}
})
dataTask.resume()
}
}
This method isn't working. as it should be made a multipart form data
How to rewrite my func to be a multipart form data to convert the image to PNG file and attach it in the API request?

Answer 1

The answer to your question strongly depends on how you are trying to send your data to server. Ironically you have provided no information about that at all. If this is JSON based API then two most likely solutions are:
You will need to convert your data to base64 string
You will need to send a multipart form data
This should all be covered somewhere in the documentation of your API. For base64 things are very simple; you can use image.pngData()?.base64EncodedString(). The multipart form data is a bit more complicated but you can find a lot of posts on it like this one.
For non-JSON I guess you could just POST raw data with correct content type header. But this again depends on the API implementation.
In any case you could also try to find what the error is if any.