Upload image from iOS app to php — Can't quite get it right — What am I missing?

Question

Firstly, I know this question has been asked a thousand times. I'm asking again because I've tried the solutions in the other examples and they are not working for me and I don't know why. Everyone seems to have a slightly different approach.

NSData *imageData =  UIImagePNGRepresentation(form.image);
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"myscript.php"];
NSMutableString *postParams = [[NSMutableString alloc] initWithFormat:@"&image=%@", imageData]];

NSData *postData = [postParams dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding allowLossyConversion:YES];
NSString *postLength = [[NSString alloc] initWithFormat:@"%d", [postData length]];

NSMutableURLRequest *connectRequest = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init];
[connectRequest setURL:url];
[connectRequest setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
[connectRequest setValue:postLength forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Length"];
[connectRequest setValue:@"application/x-www-form-urlencoded" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Type"];
//[connectRequest setValue:@"image/png" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-Type"];
[connectRequest setHTTPBody:postData];

NSData *receivedData;
NSDictionary *jsonData;

NSURLConnection *connectConnection = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:connectRequest delegate:self];

NSError *error = nil;

if (!connectConnection) {
    receivedData = nil;
    NSLog(@"The connection failed!");
} else {
    NSLog(@"Connected!");
    receivedData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:connectRequest returningResponse:NULL error:&error];
}

if (!receivedData) {
    NSLog(@"Data fetch failed: %@", [error localizedDescription]);
} else {
    NSLog(@"The data is %lu bytes", (unsigned long)[receivedData length]);
    NSLog(@"%@", receivedData);

    if (NSClassFromString(@"NSJSONSerialization")) {
        id object = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:receivedData options:0 error:&error];

        if (!object) {
            NSLog(@"JSON Serialization failed: %@", [error localizedDescription]);
        }

        if ([object isKindOfClass:[NSDictionary class]]) {
            jsonData = object;
            NSLog(@"json data: %@", jsonData);
        }
    }
}

At the moment I am passing the NSData in the postParams and using this php script:

if (isset($_POST['image']) && !empty($_POST['image'])) {

     if (file_put_contents('images/test.png', $_POST['image'])) {
           echo '{"saved":"YES"}'; die();
     } else {
           echo '{"saved":"NO"}'; die();     
     }
}

This is saving the data to a file but I can't open it as it is corrupted or some such thing. This was pretty much a last ditch effort and I didn't really expect it to work this way but it's as close as I've come so far to getting it right.

I've tried using various content header/ boundary / $_FILES / enctype content-type methods but I can't even get it to send to the script properly like that.

• incidentally, I'm not just sending the image data, I'm also posting other values in the postParams that are just strings, ints, etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions or know of any good sources out there for this?

Thanks for any assistance offered.

---

Current state after following advice given in answers below (also, further information from other parts of program):

Initial capture of image:

- (void)viewWillDisappear:(BOOL)animated
{
    [super viewWillDisappear:animated];

    [self.view endEditing:YES];

    __unused form *form = self.form;

    form.signature = self.signatureDrawView.bp;

    UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(self.signatureDrawView.bounds.size);
    [self.signatureDrawView.layer renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];
    campaignForm.signatureImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
}

where the signatureDrawView is a UIView and the form.signature is a UIBezierpath.

---

then...

NSData *sigImage =  UIImagePNGRepresentation(campaignForm.signatureImage);

which is passed to the following function:

- (void)uploadImage:(NSData *)imageData
{
    NSMutableURLRequest *request;
    NSString *urlString = @"https://.../upload.php";
    NSString *filename = @"uploadTest";
    request= [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init];
    [request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
    [request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
    NSString *boundary = @"---------------------------14737809831466499882746641449";
    NSString *contentType = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"multipart/form-data; boundary=%@",boundary];
    [request addValue:contentType forHTTPHeaderField: @"Content-Type"];
    NSMutableData *postbody = [NSMutableData data];
    [postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\r\n--%@\r\n",boundary] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    [postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"file\"; filename=\"%@.png\"\r\n", filename] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    [postbody appendData:[@"Content-Type: application/octet-stream\r\n\r\n" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    [postbody appendData:[NSData dataWithData:imageData]];
    [postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\r\n--%@--\r\n",boundary] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    [request setHTTPBody:postbody];

    NSData *returnData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:nil error:nil];
    NSString *returnString;
    returnString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:returnData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    NSLog(@"%@", returnString);
}

upload.php looking like:

    if ($_FILES["file"]["error"] > 0) {
        echo '{"file":"'.$_FILES['file']['error'].'"}';
        die();
    } else {
        $size = $_FILES["file"]["size"] / 1024;
        $upload_array = array(
                    "Upload"=>$_FILES["file"]["name"],
                    "Type"=>$_FILES["file"]["type"],
                    "Size"=>$size,
                    "Stored in"=>$_FILES["file"]["tmp_name"]
                    );
        //echo json_encode($upload_array);
        if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES["file"]["tmp_name"], "signatures/" . $_FILES["file"]["name"])) {
            echo '{"success":"YES"}';
            die();  
        } else { 
            echo '{"success":"NO"}';
            die();  
        }
        die();
    }

This is giving me the {success:NO} output and the $upload_array dump shows null values.

Answer 1

Put following code, may you get help

NSData *myData=UIImagePNGRepresentation([self.img image]);
NSMutableURLRequest *request;
NSString *urlString = @"http://xyzabc.com/iphone/upload.php";
NSString *filename = @"filename";
request= [[[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init] autorelease];
[request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
[request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
NSString *boundary = @"---------------------------14737809831466499882746641449";
NSString *contentType = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"multipart/form-data; boundary=%@",boundary];
[request addValue:contentType forHTTPHeaderField: @"Content-Type"];
NSMutableData *postbody = [NSMutableData data];
[postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\r\n--%@\r\n",boundary] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
[postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"userfile\"; filename=\"%@.jpg\"\r\n", filename] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
[postbody appendData:[@"Content-Type: application/octet-stream\r\n\r\n" dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
[postbody appendData:[NSData dataWithData:myData]];
[postbody appendData:[[NSString stringWithFormat:@"\r\n--%@--\r\n",boundary] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
[request setHTTPBody:postbody];

NSData *returnData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:nil error:nil];
NSString *returnString;
returnString = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:returnData encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
NSLog(@"%@", returnString);