Android Gallery on Android 4.4 (KitKat) returns different URI for Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT

Question

Before KitKat (or before the new Gallery) the Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT returned a URI like this

content://media/external/images/media/39

Answer 1

Question

How to get an actual file path from a URI

Answer

To my knowledge, we don't need to get the file path from a URI because for most of the cases we can directly use the URI to get our work done (like 1. getting bitmap 2. Sending a file to the server, etc.)

1. Sending to the server

We can directly send the file to the server using just the URI.

Using the URI we can get InputStream, which we can directly send to the server using MultiPartEntity.

Example

/**
 * Used to form Multi Entity for a URI (URI pointing to some file, which we got from other application).
 *
 * @param uri     URI.
 * @param context Context.
 * @return Multi Part Entity.
 */
public MultipartEntity formMultiPartEntityForUri(final Uri uri, final Context context) {
    MultipartEntity multipartEntity = new MultipartEntity(HttpMultipartMode.BROWSER_COMPATIBLE, null, Charset.forName("UTF-8"));
    try {
        InputStream inputStream = mContext.getContentResolver().openInputStream(uri);
        if (inputStream != null) {
            ContentBody contentBody = new InputStreamBody(inputStream, getFileNameFromUri(uri, context));
            multipartEntity.addPart("[YOUR_KEY]", contentBody);
        }
    }
    catch (Exception exp) {
        Log.e("TAG", exp.getMessage());
    }
    return multipartEntity;
}

/**
 * Used to get a file name from a URI.
 *
 * @param uri     URI.
 * @param context Context.
 * @return File name from URI.
 */
public String getFileNameFromUri(final Uri uri, final Context context) {

    String fileName = null;
    if (uri != null) {
        // Get file name.
        // File Scheme.
        if (ContentResolver.SCHEME_FILE.equals(uri.getScheme())) {
            File file = new File(uri.getPath());
            fileName = file.getName();
        }
        // Content Scheme.
        else if (ContentResolver.SCHEME_CONTENT.equals(uri.getScheme())) {
            Cursor returnCursor =
                    context.getContentResolver().query(uri, null, null, null, null);
            if (returnCursor != null && returnCursor.moveToFirst()) {
                int nameIndex = returnCursor.getColumnIndex(OpenableColumns.DISPLAY_NAME);
                fileName = returnCursor.getString(nameIndex);
                returnCursor.close();
            }
        }
    }
    return fileName;
}

2. Getting a BitMap from a URI

If the URI is pointing to image then we will get bitmap, else null:

/**
 * Used to create bitmap for the given URI.
 * 

 * 1. Convert the given URI to bitmap.
 * 2. Calculate ratio (depending on bitmap size) on how much we need to subSample the original bitmap.
 * 3. Create bitmap bitmap depending on the ration from URI.
 * 4. Reference - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3879992/how-to-get-bitmap-from-an-uri
 *
 * @param context       Context.
 * @param uri           URI to the file.
 * @param bitmapSize Bitmap size required in PX.
 * @return Bitmap bitmap created for the given URI.
 * @throws IOException
 */
public static Bitmap createBitmapFromUri(final Context context, Uri uri, final int bitmapSize) throws IOException {

    // 1. Convert the given URI to bitmap.
    InputStream input = context.getContentResolver().openInputStream(uri);
    BitmapFactory.Options onlyBoundsOptions = new BitmapFactory.Options();
    onlyBoundsOptions.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
    onlyBoundsOptions.inDither = true;//optional
    onlyBoundsOptions.inPreferredConfig = Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888;//optional
    BitmapFactory.decodeStream(input, null, onlyBoundsOptions);
    input.close();
    if ((onlyBoundsOptions.outWidth == -1) || (onlyBoundsOptions.outHeight == -1)) {
        return null;
    }

    // 2. Calculate ratio.
    int originalSize = (onlyBoundsOptions.outHeight > onlyBoundsOptions.outWidth) ? onlyBoundsOptions.outHeight : onlyBoundsOptions.outWidth;
    double ratio = (originalSize > bitmapSize) ? (originalSize / bitmapSize) : 1.0;

    // 3. Create bitmap.
    BitmapFactory.Options bitmapOptions = new BitmapFactory.Options();
    bitmapOptions.inSampleSize = getPowerOfTwoForSampleRatio(ratio);
    bitmapOptions.inDither = true;//optional
    bitmapOptions.inPreferredConfig = Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888;//optional
    input = context.getContentResolver().openInputStream(uri);
    Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(input, null, bitmapOptions);
    input.close();

    return bitmap;
}

/**
 * For Bitmap option inSampleSize - We need to give value in power of two.
 *
 * @param ratio Ratio to be rounded of to power of two.
 * @return Ratio rounded of to nearest power of two.
 */
private static int getPowerOfTwoForSampleRatio(final double ratio) {
    int k = Integer.highestOneBit((int) Math.floor(ratio));
    if (k == 0) return 1;
    else return k;
}

Comments

1. Android doesn't provide any methods to get file path from a URI, and in most of the above answers we have hard coded some constants, which may break in feature release (sorry, I may be wrong).
2. Before going directly going to a solution of the getting file path from a URI, try if you can solve your use case with a URI and Android default methods.

Reference

1. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/content-provider-basics.html
2. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/ContentResolver.html
3. https://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/httpmime/apidocs/org/apache/http/entity/mime/content/InputStreamBody.html