How to send Multipart form data with restTemplate Spring-mvc

Question

I am trying to upload a file with RestTemplate to Raspberry Pi with Jetty. On Pi there is a servlet running:

protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp)
        throws ServletException, IOException {

    PrintWriter outp = resp.getWriter();

    StringBuffer buff = new StringBuffer();

    File file1 = (File) req.getAttribute("userfile1");
    String p = req.getParameter("path");
    boolean success = false;

    if (file1 == null || !file1.exists()) {
        buff.append("File does not exist\n");
    } else if (file1.isDirectory()) {
        buff.append("File is a directory\n");
    } else {
        File outputFile = new File(req.getParameter("userfile1"));
        if(isValidPath(p)){
            p = DRIVE_ROOT + p;
            final File finalDest = new File(p
                    + outputFile.getName());
            success = false;
            try {
                copyFileUsingFileChannels(file1, finalDest);
                finalDest.setWritable(true);
                success = true;
            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
            if (success){
                buff.append("File successfully uploaded.\n");
            }
            else{
                                    buff.append("Failed to save file.");
            }
        }
        else{
            buff.append("Invalid path.\n");
        }
    }
    outp.write(buff.toString());
}

I am able to successfully do it with curl

curl --form userfile1=@/home/pi/src/CreateNewFolderServlet.java --form press=OK localhost:2222/pi/GetFileServlet?path="/media/"

This is the method that is supposed to have the same functionality on webapp.

@ResponseBody 
@RequestMapping(value="/upload/",method=RequestMethod.POST ,produces = "text/plain")
public String uploadFile(MultipartHttpServletRequest request2, HttpServletResponse response2){

    Iterator<String> itr =  request2.getFileNames();

     MultipartFile file = request2.getFile(itr.next());
     System.out.println(file.getOriginalFilename() +" uploaded!");

    System.out.println(file.toString()); 
     MultiValueMap<String, Object> parts = new LinkedMultiValueMap<String, Object>();
    parts.add("userfile1",file);
    //reqEntity.addPart("userfile1", file);
    String path="/public/";
    RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
    HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
    headers.setContentType(MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA);
    System.out.println("1");
    HttpEntity<MultiValueMap<String, Object>> request = new HttpEntity<MultiValueMap<String, Object>>(parts, headers);
    String url =  url2+"/pi/GetFileServlet?path="+path;
    System.out.println("2");
/*  restTemplate.getMessageConverters().add(new FormHttpMessageConverter());
    restTemplate.getMessageConverters().add(
            new MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter());*/
    System.out.println("3");
    ResponseEntity<String> response = restTemplate.exchange(url, HttpMethod.POST, request,String.class);
    System.out.println("4");
    System.out.println("response : " +response);
    if(response==null||response.getBody().trim()==""){
        return "error";
    }
    return response.getBody();
}

This is the output that I get:

ui-elements.html uploaded!

org.springframework.web.multipart.support.StandardMultipartHttpServletRequest$StandardMultipartFile@47e7673e

1

2

3

As you can see number 4 is not printed No exception in console. Exceptions found during debugging:

org.springframework.http.converter.HttpMessageNotWritableException: Could not write JSON: No serializer found for class java.io.ByteArrayInputStream and no properties discovered to create BeanSerializer (to avoid exception, disable SerializationFeature.FAIL_ON_EMPTY_BEANS) ) (through reference chain: org.springframework.web.multipart.support.StandardMultipartFile["inputStream"]); nested exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException: No serializer found for class java.io.ByteArrayInputStream and no properties discovered to create BeanSerializer (to avoid exception, disable SerializationFeature.FAIL_ON_EMPTY_BEANS) ) (through reference chain: org.springframework.web.multipart.support.StandardMultipartFile["inputStream"])

Answer 1

Reading the whole file in a ByteArrayResource can be a memory consumption issue with large files.

You can proxy a file upload in a spring mvc controller using a InputStreamResource:

@RequestMapping(value = "/upload", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public ResponseEntity<?> uploadImages(@RequestPart("images") final MultipartFile[] files) throws IOException {
    LinkedMultiValueMap<String, Object> map = new LinkedMultiValueMap<>();
    String response;
    HttpStatus httpStatus = HttpStatus.CREATED;

    try {
        for (MultipartFile file : files) {
            if (!file.isEmpty()) {
                map.add("images", new MultipartInputStreamFileResource(file.getInputStream(), file.getOriginalFilename()));
            }
        }

        HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        headers.setContentType(MediaType.MULTIPART_FORM_DATA);

        String url = "http://example.com/upload";

        HttpEntity<LinkedMultiValueMap<String, Object>> requestEntity = new HttpEntity<>(map, headers);
        response = restTemplate.postForObject(url, requestEntity, String.class);

    } catch (HttpStatusCodeException e) {
        httpStatus = HttpStatus.valueOf(e.getStatusCode().value());
        response = e.getResponseBodyAsString();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        httpStatus = HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR;
        response = e.getMessage();
    }

    return new ResponseEntity<>(response, httpStatus);
}

class MultipartInputStreamFileResource extends InputStreamResource {

    private final String filename;

    MultipartInputStreamFileResource(InputStream inputStream, String filename) {
        super(inputStream);
        this.filename = filename;
    }

    @Override
    public String getFilename() {
        return this.filename;
    }

    @Override
    public long contentLength() throws IOException {
        return -1; // we do not want to generally read the whole stream into memory ...
    }
}