[web-services] How do I upload a file with metadata using a REST web service?

I have a REST web service that currently exposes this URL:

http://server/data/media

where users can POST the following JSON:

{
    "Name": "Test",
    "Latitude": 12.59817,
    "Longitude": 52.12873
}

in order to create a new Media metadata.

Now I need the ability to upload a file at the same time as the media metadata. What's the best way of going about this? I could introduce a new property called file and base64 encode the file, but I was wondering if there was a better way.

There's also using multipart/form-data like what a HTML form would send over, but I'm using a REST web service and I want to stick to using JSON if at all possible.

To build on ccleve's answer, if you are using superagent / express / multer, on the front end side build your multipart request doing something like this:

superagent
    .post(url)
    .accept('application/json')
    .field('myVeryRelevantJsonData', JSON.stringify({ peep: 'Peep Peep!!!' }))
    .attach('myFile', file);

cf https://visionmedia.github.io/superagent/#multipart-requests.

On the express side, whatever was passed as field will end up in req.body after doing:

app.use(express.json({ limit: '3MB' }));

Your route would include something like this:

const multerMemStorage = multer.memoryStorage();
const multerUploadToMem = multer({
  storage: multerMemStorage,
  // Also specify fileFilter, limits...
});

router.post('/myUploads',
  multerUploadToMem.single('myFile'),
  async (req, res, next) => {
    // Find back myVeryRelevantJsonData :
    logger.verbose(`Uploaded req.body=${JSON.stringify(req.body)}`);

    // If your file is text:
    const newFileText = req.file.buffer.toString();
    logger.verbose(`Uploaded text=${newFileText}`);
    return next();
  },
  ...

One thing to keep in mind though is this note from the multer doc, concerning disk storage:

Note that req.body might not have been fully populated yet. It depends on the order that the client transmits fields and files to the server.

I guess this means it would be unreliable to, say, compute the target dir/filename based on json metadata passed along the file

Just because you're not wrapping the entire request body in JSON, doesn't meant it's not RESTful to use multipart/form-data to post both the JSON and the file(s) in a single request:

curl -F "metadata=<metadata.json" -F "[email protected]" http://example.com/add-file

on the server side:

class AddFileResource(Resource):
    def render_POST(self, request):
        metadata = json.loads(request.args['metadata'][0])
        file_body = request.args['file'][0]
        ...

to upload multiple files, it's possible to either use separate "form fields" for each:

curl -F "metadata=<metadata.json" -F "[email protected]" -F "[email protected]" http://example.com/add-file

...in which case the server code will have request.args['file1'][0] and request.args['file2'][0]

or reuse the same one for many:

curl -F "metadata=<metadata.json" -F "[email protected]" -F "[email protected]" http://example.com/add-file

...in which case request.args['files'] will simply be a list of length 2.

or pass multiple files through a single field:

curl -F "metadata=<metadata.json" -F "[email protected],some-other-file.tar.gz" http://example.com/add-file

...in which case request.args['files'] will be a string containing all the files, which you'll have to parse yourself — not sure how to do it, but I'm sure it's not difficult, or better just use the previous approaches.

The difference between @ and < is that @ causes the file to get attached as a file upload, whereas < attaches the contents of the file as a text field.

P.S. Just because I'm using curl as a way to generate the POST requests doesn't mean the exact same HTTP requests couldn't be sent from a programming language such as Python or using any sufficiently capable tool.

If your file and its metadata creating one resource, its perfectly fine to upload them both in one request. Sample request would be :

POST https://target.com/myresources/resourcename HTTP/1.1

Accept: application/json

Content-Type: multipart/form-data; 

boundary=-----------------------------28947758029299

Host: target.com

-------------------------------28947758029299

Content-Disposition: form-data; name="application/json"

{"markers": [
        {
            "point":new GLatLng(40.266044,-74.718479), 
            "homeTeam":"Lawrence Library",
            "awayTeam":"LUGip",
            "markerImage":"images/red.png",
            "information": "Linux users group meets second Wednesday of each month.",
            "fixture":"Wednesday 7pm",
            "capacity":"",
            "previousScore":""
        },
        {
            "point":new GLatLng(40.211600,-74.695702),
            "homeTeam":"Hamilton Library",
            "awayTeam":"LUGip HW SIG",
            "markerImage":"images/white.png",
            "information": "Linux users can meet the first Tuesday of the month to work out harward and configuration issues.",
            "fixture":"Tuesday 7pm",
            "capacity":"",
            "tv":""
        },
        {
            "point":new GLatLng(40.294535,-74.682012),
            "homeTeam":"Applebees",
            "awayTeam":"After LUPip Mtg Spot",
            "markerImage":"images/newcastle.png",
            "information": "Some of us go there after the main LUGip meeting, drink brews, and talk.",
            "fixture":"Wednesday whenever",
            "capacity":"2 to 4 pints",
            "tv":""
        },
] }

-------------------------------28947758029299

Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"; filename="myfilename.pdf"

Content-Type: application/octet-stream

%PDF-1.4
%
2 0 obj
<</Length 57/Filter/FlateDecode>>stream
x+r
26S00SI2P0Qn
F
!i\
)%[email protected]
[
endstream
endobj
4 0 obj
<</Type/Page/MediaBox[0 0 595 842]/Resources<</Font<</F1 1 0 R>>>>/Contents 2 0 R/Parent 3 0 R>>
endobj
1 0 obj
<</Type/Font/Subtype/Type1/BaseFont/Helvetica/Encoding/WinAnsiEncoding>>
endobj
3 0 obj
<</Type/Pages/Count 1/Kids[4 0 R]>>
endobj
5 0 obj
<</Type/Catalog/Pages 3 0 R>>
endobj
6 0 obj
<</Producer(iTextSharp 5.5.11 2000-2017 iText Group NV \(AGPL-version\))/CreationDate(D:20170630120636+02'00')/ModDate(D:20170630120636+02'00')>>
endobj
xref
0 7
0000000000 65535 f 
0000000250 00000 n 
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0000000338 00000 n 
0000000138 00000 n 
0000000389 00000 n 
0000000434 00000 n 
trailer
<</Size 7/Root 5 0 R/Info 6 0 R/ID [<c7c34272c2e618698de73f4e1a65a1b5><c7c34272c2e618698de73f4e1a65a1b5>]>>
%iText-5.5.11
startxref
597
%%EOF

-------------------------------28947758029299--

One way to approach the problem is to make the upload a two phase process. First, you would upload the file itself using a POST, where the server returns some identifier back to the client (an identifier might be the SHA1 of the file contents). Then, a second request associates the metadata with the file data:

{
    "Name": "Test",
    "Latitude": 12.59817,
    "Longitude": 52.12873,
    "ContentID": "7a788f56fa49ae0ba5ebde780efe4d6a89b5db47"
}

Including the file data base64 encoded into the JSON request itself will increase the size of the data transferred by 33%. This may or may not be important depending on the overall size of the file.

Another approach might be to use a POST of the raw file data, but include any metadata in the HTTP request header. However, this falls a bit outside basic REST operations and may be more awkward for some HTTP client libraries.

I realize this is a very old question, but hopefully this will help someone else out as I came upon this post looking for the same thing. I had a similar issue, just that my metadata was a Guid and int. The solution is the same though. You can just make the needed metadata part of the URL.

POST accepting method in your "Controller" class:

public Task<HttpResponseMessage> PostFile(string name, float latitude, float longitude)
{
    //See http://stackoverflow.com/a/10327789/431906 for how to accept a file
    return null;
}

Then in whatever you're registering routes, WebApiConfig.Register(HttpConfiguration config) for me in this case.

config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
    name: "FooController",
    routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{name}/{latitude}/{longitude}",
    defaults: new { }
);

I don't understand why, over the course of eight years, no one has posted the easy answer. Rather than encode the file as base64, encode the json as a string. Then just decode the json on the server side.

In Javascript:

let formData = new FormData();
formData.append("file", myfile);
formData.append("myjson", JSON.stringify(myJsonObject));

POST it using Content-Type: multipart/form-data

On the server side, retrieve the file normally, and retrieve the json as a string. Convert the string to an object, which is usually one line of code no matter what programming language you use.

(Yes, it works great. Doing it in one of my apps.)