APIs help us to send and receive data in some particular data format that can then be used individually or integrated with a frontend UI. In our case, the entire API server is used to manage all the requests from the frontend and send back the necessary response. Usually, the application is to send simple form data which is then stored into the backend database and a valid jsonapi response is shown. However other than normal text, url, datetime data one very important data is media files, in our case event images, user images, slides, etc. In this blog, we will particularly deal with how we can upload images in the server using API.
Firstly, we need to decide how do we send the data in the post request of the API. So we are sending a base64 encoded string representing the image along with the image extension appended to it, for example, data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANS. This is a widely used format for showing images over the web. So when we send a POST request we send a json encoded body like:
There are 2 parts of the data in the string that we receive. The first part basically tells us the format of the image(.gif in this case) and string encoding(base64 in this case), the second part gives us the encoded string. So, from the first part, we extract the file extension for the image file to be created. We use uuid.uuid4() for a random filename.
Now to write the base64 encoded string as an image file, we first need to get only the encoded string part from the data and then decode it. We use string decode function of python for the decoding purpose. Then we write the data to the image file and save it.
Finally using whatever logic you are using for serving your static files, you generate the static file path for the image saved. And then create another json encoded response which returns you the url for the saved image in the server.
And there you have your image uploaded and served.
Sending Data
Firstly, we need to decide how do we send the data in the post request of the API. So we are sending a base64 encoded string representing the image along with the image extension appended to it, for example, data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANS. This is a widely used format for showing images over the web. So when we send a POST request we send a json encoded body like:
{
"data": "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANS"
}
Converting Base64 Data to Image
There are 2 parts of the data in the string that we receive. The first part basically tells us the format of the image(.gif in this case) and string encoding(base64 in this case), the second part gives us the encoded string. So, from the first part, we extract the file extension for the image file to be created. We use uuid.uuid4() for a random filename.
filename = '{}.{}'.format(str(uuid.uuid4()).data.split(";")[0].split("/")[1])
file.write(data.split(",")[1].decode("base64")
API Response
Finally using whatever logic you are using for serving your static files, you generate the static file path for the image saved. And then create another json encoded response which returns you the url for the saved image in the server.
{
"url": "https://xyz.storage.com/asd/fgh/hjk/1233456.png"
}