Uploading Large NSData to the Web

Question

I\'m currently working on an application that has to upload large files (mainly movies/videos) to the web. After reading what I can, I went the the approach of converting t

Answer 1

Assuming that it makes sense to upload the movie in its native format, you can really make this easier using the BSD (ie Unix) section 3 interface:

• given a filePath, open the file and get an int file descriptor (fd)

• with fd, get the length of the file

• keep track of how much you've loaded so you know where to get more data

• use mmap(3) to map in JUST the data you want to upload at any time, and use the void * pointer returned by mmap as the location of the data

• when the data has been sent, munmap the old data chunk and mmap a new chunk

• after all data is sent, munmap the last chunk, the close(fd).

No temporary memory - no mallocs. I use mmap whenever I have to deal with huge files.

Edit: you can also use NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:options with options set to use mmap. You would then use the byte pointer to read small chunks as you need them.