How to retrieve a photo from HttpClient?

Question

I am using HttpClient to make a request from my Android device to a simple HTTP server, which contains a PHP script to retrieve a picture. The picture is available inside a blob data. It means if I do this little PHP code in the server side:

 file_put_contents("myPicture.png", $blob_data);

I get the picture saved in the server with a file named myPicture.png. Now I want to get this $blob_data (my picture) to save it inside my Android device, not the HTTP server. Someone can give me a hint to return the blob data from the PHP script and get the picture inside the Android device to store it locally?

Here is my HTTPClient:

@Click(R.id.btn_login)
@Background
public void LoginTrigger(){

    String nUsername = username.getText().toString().trim();
    String nPassword = password.getText().toString().trim();

    if (nUsername.matches("") || nPassword.matches("")){

        displayToast("Please insert your login!");
    }
    else{
        List<NameValuePair> urlParameters = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
        urlParameters.add(new BasicNameValuePair("username", nUsername));
        urlParameters.add(new BasicNameValuePair("password", nPassword));

        HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpPost post = new HttpPost(SERVER_PROXY);
        post.setHeader("User-Agent", SERVER_USER_AGENT);
        try{
            post.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(urlParameters, "utf-8"));
        }
        catch(Exception e){
            Log.getStackTraceString(e);
        }

        HttpResponse response = null;
        try{
            response = client.execute(post);
            Log.e("Response Code : ", " = " + response.getStatusLine().getReasonPhrase());

            InputStream inputStream = response.getEntity().getContent();

            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream, "UTF-8"));
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            String line = null;
            while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                sb.append(line + "\n");
            }
            inputStream.close();
            String responseMessage = sb.toString();
            checkLogin(responseMessage);
        }
        catch(Exception e){
            Log.e("HTTP-ERROR", " = " + Log.getStackTraceString(e));
            displayToast("Check your Internet connection!");
        }
    }
}

String responseMessage contains my blob data when I echo it in my PHP script. I just need to put this stream inside a Bitmap or something, but I've no clue about how to get it done.

Thanks if you know it!

Can you share the HttpClient code that you have that downloads the data from your server? I'm unsure where you're stuck. — Brandon, Jan 18 '14 at 20:27
Hi brandon, thanks for your interest, I just added my HTTPClient up to the post. the HTTPClient doesn't download anything, it just ask my PHP script to retrieve my picture. Now I want to return this picture which is inside my PHP variable "$blob_data" to my Android device thanks HTTPClient and download the picture locally, to store it in my Android device. I hope I'm more clear. — Nizar B., Jan 18 '14 at 20:45
I think you want to add a `PHP` tag to this to get some help in adding the image to the HTTP response. — Brandon, Jan 18 '14 at 20:50

Pedro Lobito · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-26T20:07:09.470

php code (server)

<?php
header('Content-Type: image/png');
echo($blob_data);
?>

java code (device)

URL url = new URL ("http://myserver.com/myPicture.png");
InputStream input = url.openStream();
try {
    //The sdcard directory e.g. '/sdcard' can be used directly, or 
    //more safely abstracted with getExternalStorageDirectory()
    File storagePath = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory();
    OutputStream output = new FileOutputStream (new File(storagePath,"myPicture.png"));
    try {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[aReasonableSize];
        int bytesRead = 0;
        while ((bytesRead = input.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length)) >= 0) {
            output.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }
    } finally {
        output.close();
    }
} finally {
    input.close();
}

Manifest

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

1

You need to change both the client and the server code.

The server code

Add this at the end of your PHP script

header("Content-Type: image/png");
header("Content-Length: " . mb_strlen($blob_data, '8bit'));
echo $blob_data;
exit;

The client code

Your code is not ready to read binary data, please, check out this other question on how to do it: how to download image from any web page in java

edited May 23 '17 at 12:06

Community

1
1

answered Jan 21 '14 at 21:44

adosaiguas

1,331
9
13

Thanks adosaiguas, I'm going to try this solution. – Nizar B. Jan 21 '14 at 22:17

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 27 '14 at 12:58

it's not recommended to send the actual file to your android app , the best way to do that is by sending a base 64 encoded a link string of the image , which will have all the meta data of the image , then load the image from base46 encoded string

 $image = base64_decode($file_path);
 return response::json(array('image'=>$image);

and receive it like object and render your image with the base64code image like this
i do it in js like this

var reader = new FileReader();
reader.onload = function(e) {
            image_base64 = e.target.result;
            preview.html("<img src='" + image_base64 + "'/>");

        };
        reader.readAsDataURL(file);

How to retrieve a photo from HttpClient?

3 Answers3

The server code

The client code