Question

My Android app opens images and makes manipulations on them. My Activity requests an image to be opened as follows:

Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setType("image/*");
intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent,
                                            "Complete action using"),
                                            PICK_FROM_FILE);

On doing this, it launches a dialog with three to four options, like the ES File Explorer: Files, Gallery, etc.

I wish to read this as a Bitmap using BitmapFactory.decodeFile(path).

When I choose the file from ES File Explorer, the path is computed like this:

String path = imageData.getData().getPath();

However, this does not work for choosing an image from the Gallery or Files, where the value of path is /external/images/media/38 for example.

So I put a check, to convert such a path that begins with external using:

if (path.startsWith("/external")) {
  path = getFilePathFromUri(imageData.getData());
}

private String getFilePathFromUri(Uri uri) {
  Cursor cursor = managedQuery(uri,
                               new String[] { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA },
                               null, null, null);
  int column_index = cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA);
  cursor.moveToFirst();

  return cursor.getString(column_index);
}

This converts the above path to /mnt/sdcard/dcim/Camera/2011-11-13_15-33-24_304.jpg and now this works for BitmapFactory.decodeFile(path).

I understand that hardcoding such a check (/external) is not a good idea, is there a better, perhaps generic way to resolve the format of the URI returned in the Intent?

Answer 1

I understand that hardcoding such a check (/external) is not a good idea, is there a better, perhaps generic way to resolve the format of the URI returned in the intent?

imageData.getData() returns a Uri. If its path starts with file:// (this is what most file managers will return), then the uri represents a file. Another option is uri represents a content item (this is what Gallery will return), in this case its path starts with content:// and you should call ContentProvider for an actual image file path (as you do in your sample). So I think you could go with something like this:

Uri uri = imageData.getData();
String scheme = uri.getScheme();
if ("file".equals(scheme)) {
    // process as a uri that points to a file
} else if ("content".equals(scheme)) {
    // process as a uri that points to a content item
}