Getting URL of UIImage selected from UIImagePickerController

Question

I'm trying to provide a user selection of an image from Photo Library. Thus I'm using UIImagePickerController for selecting. But here comes an issue with getting its initial URL in the file system (I need this for CKAsset).

My code.

func imagePickerController(picker: UIImagePickerController, didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo info: [NSObject : AnyObject]) {
    let imageURL = info[UIImagePickerControllerReferenceURL] as NSURL
    let path = imageURL.path!
    let imageName = path.lastPathComponent
    let paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.DocumentDirectory, .UserDomainMask, true)
    let documentDirectory = paths.first as String!
    let localPath = documentDirectory + "/" + imageName

    let imageData = NSData(contentsOfFile: localPath)!
    let image = UIImage(data: imageData)!

    picker.dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)

}

imageURL is kinda cryptic. It describes Asset URL, but not one in File System. And it looks like: assets-library://asset/asset.JPG?id=B6C0A21C-07C3-493D-8B44-3BA4C9981C25&ext=JPG.

According to this logic the path is /asset.JPG where asset.JPG is a name of the image.

Then I'm accessing my Documents folder and trying to find there a file with path:

/Users/Eugene/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/3C5E9A23-8220-4B37-BD14-F1E42EEC2C7C/data/Containers/Data/Application/20EBAAE2-6C6F-4651-A48F-16A222CCB3A2/Documents/asset.JPG

Cryptic as well but seems to be a real path for a not existing image... No image with that path can be found. And this makes me sick.

Do I have to save an image from the beginning? Or is there any other way to go?

I've looked through several tutorials using AssetsLibrary API but I didn't find anything useful to solve my problem. Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

Okay, I've solved the issue.

All you have to do is simply grab the image (info[UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage] as UIImage) and save to the given directory. If you need to save only 1 picture it works great. The code id below.

func imagePickerController(picker: UIImagePickerController, didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo info: [NSObject : AnyObject]) {
    let imageURL = info[UIImagePickerControllerReferenceURL] as NSURL
    let imageName = imageURL.path!.lastPathComponent
    let documentDirectory = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.DocumentDirectory, .UserDomainMask, true).first as String
    let localPath = documentDirectory.stringByAppendingPathComponent(imageName)

    let image = info[UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage] as UIImage
    let data = UIImagePNGRepresentation(image)
    data.writeToFile(localPath, atomically: true)

    let imageData = NSData(contentsOfFile: localPath)!
    let photoURL = NSURL(fileURLWithPath: localPath)
    let imageWithData = UIImage(data: imageData)!

    picker.dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)

}