Question

I want to send an image to a web server running .Net which is not Restful .

I have tried a lot of things to convert the image into string and then sending it.
Like using initWithData:encoding: and also tried it with converting the image data into base64encodedstring by the method given in this question

iPhone to MS SQL Image Data Type Conversion Question

But no luck.

Then I thought of looking on facebook api for uploading images on facebook wall.
Using this tutorial the image can be uploaded to facebook

http://www.raywenderlich.com/1626/how-to-post-to-a-users-wall-upload-photos-and-add-a-like-button-from-your-iphone-app

But the problem is, it is using asihttprequest to send the data on the facebook wall and I cannot see the raw data in the request will uploading the image . Can anyone help me out.

Answer 1

I tried it at my end. First I converted to base64encoding like this:

NSString *str64;

        if(Image){
            NSData *imageData = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(Image,0.75);
            str64 = [imageData base64Encoding];
        } 

Then I added into a dictionary and then added that dictionary into an array so that I can pass it as a JSON string in request’s body.

NSMutableArray *ParaArray =[[NSMutableArray alloc]init];

    NSDictionary *ParaDictionary=[NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:
                                  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",Userid], @"userid",
                                  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",[Imagename URLEncodedString]], @"imagename",
                                  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",DateNTime], @"datetime", 
                                  [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",ImageLocation], @"imagelocation",
                                  str64,@"image",
                                  nil]; // set the parameter


    [ParaArray addObject:ParaDictionary];

There after using ASIFormDataRequest I sent the image to server using this snippet:

ASIFormDataRequest *request = [[ASIFormDataRequest alloc] initWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];

    [request setPostValue:[ParaArray JSONRepresentation]  forKey:@"bulk_data"];

    //[ParaDictionary release];
    [ParaArray release];

    [request setTimeOutSeconds:20];


    [request startSynchronous];

It worked fine for me. I hope it helps you as well.

Data is passed in form of a string and we can directly use the base64Encoding methods by copy pasting them. Though you might know them still here they are:

- (NSString *) base64Encoding {
return [self base64EncodingWithLineLength:0];
}

- (NSString *) base64EncodingWithLineLength:(NSUInteger) lineLength {
const unsigned char *bytes = [self bytes];
NSMutableString *result = [NSMutableString stringWithCapacity:[self length]];
unsigned long ixtext = 0;
unsigned long lentext = [self length];
long ctremaining = 0;
unsigned char inbuf[3], outbuf[4];
unsigned short i = 0;
unsigned short charsonline = 0, ctcopy = 0;
unsigned long ix = 0;

while( YES ) {
    ctremaining = lentext - ixtext;
    if( ctremaining <= 0 ) break;

    for( i = 0; i < 3; i++ ) {
        ix = ixtext + i;
        if( ix < lentext ) inbuf[i] = bytes[ix];
        else inbuf [i] = 0;
    }

    outbuf [0] = (inbuf [0] & 0xFC) >> 2;
    outbuf [1] = ((inbuf [0] & 0x03) << 4) | ((inbuf [1] & 0xF0) >> 4);
    outbuf [2] = ((inbuf [1] & 0x0F) << 2) | ((inbuf [2] & 0xC0) >> 6);
    outbuf [3] = inbuf [2] & 0x3F;
    ctcopy = 4;

    switch( ctremaining ) {
        case 1:
            ctcopy = 2;
            break;
        case 2:
            ctcopy = 3;
            break;
    }

    for( i = 0; i < ctcopy; i++ )
        [result appendFormat:@"%c", encodingTable[outbuf[i]]];

    for( i = ctcopy; i < 4; i++ )
        [result appendString:@"="];

    ixtext += 3;
    charsonline += 4;

    if( lineLength > 0 ) {
        if( charsonline >= lineLength ) {
            charsonline = 0;
            [result appendString:@"\n"];
        }
    }
}

return [NSString stringWithString:result];
}