Upload bitmap data from flash to laravel route

Question

I have a video player built in AS3. I take a snapshot of the video player using this code:

var uploadUrl = 'http://localhost:8000/assets/uploadframegrab';
var bitmap = new Bitmap();        
var graphicsData : Vector.<IGraphicsData>;
graphicsData = container.graphics.readGraphicsData();
bitmap.bitmapData = GraphicsBitmapFill(graphicsData[0]).bitmapData;

var jpgEncoder:JPGEncoder = new JPGEncoder(85);
var jpgStream:ByteArray = jpgEncoder.encode(bitmap.bitmapData);

var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
var header:URLRequestHeader = new URLRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/octet-stream");
var csrf:URLRequestHeader = new URLRequestHeader("X-CSRF-Token", csrfToken);        
var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest(uploadUrl);
request.requestHeaders.push(header);
request.requestHeaders.push(csrf);
request.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
request.data = jpgStream;
loader.load(request);

I need to upload the encoded to JPG using one of my Laravel routes. My route looks like:

Route::post('assets/uploadframegrab', 'AssetController@uploadFramegrab');

When I run the AS3 code, it calls the laravel route, but my $request variable appears to be empty. The Request Payload property on the network info tab that shows all my headers and stuff contains what looks like the source of the image file.

If I do a return Response::json(['filedata' => $request]); all I get is this:

filedata: {
  attributes: {},
  request: {},
  query: {},
  server: {},
  files: {},
  cookies: {},
  headers: {}
}

My uploadFramegrab function is simply this for now:

public function uploadFramegrab(Request $request)
{
  if ($request)
  {
    return Response::json(['filedata' => $request]);
  }
  else
  {
    return Response::json(['error' => 'no file uploaded']);
  }
}

I've searched online but I cannot find anything specifically for uploading from flash to laravel. I've done it javascript to laravel no problem. Anyone know what this could be? If you'd like more information please ask.

Answer 1

To do that, you can use the Multipart.as ( AS3 multipart form data request generator ) from Jonas Monnier. It's really very easy to use it, take a look on this example ( using the basic example from the github project's page ) :

var upload_url:String = 'http://www.example.com/upload';

// create an orange square
var bmp_data:BitmapData = new BitmapData(400, 400, false, 0xff9900);

// compress our BitmapData as a jpg image   
var image:ByteArray = new JPGEncoder(75).encode(bmp_data);

// create our Multipart form
var form:Multipart = new Multipart(upload_url);

    // add some fields if you need to send some informations
    form.addField('name', 'bmp.jpg');
    form.addField('size', image.length.toString());

    // add our image
    form.addFile('image', image, 'image/jpeg', 'bmp.jpg');

var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
    loader.load(form.request);

Then, in the PHP side, you do as you have usually did :

public function upload(\Illuminate\Http\Request $request)
{        
    if($request->hasFile('image'))
    {            
        $file = $request->file('image');            
        $upload_success = $file->move($your_upload_dir, $file->getClientOriginalName());

        if($upload_success)
        {
            return('The file "'.$request->get('name').'" was successfully uploaded');
        } 
        else 
        {
            return('An error has occurred !');
        }

    }        
    return('There is no "image" file !');
}

Hope that can help.

Answer 2

Based on the doc for AS3 (emphasis mine):

The way in which the data is used depends on the type of object used:

• If the object is a ByteArray object, the binary data of the ByteArray object is used as POST data. For GET, data of ByteArray type is not supported. Also, data of ByteArray type is not supported for FileReference.upload() and FileReference.download().
• If the object is a URLVariables object and the method is POST, the variables are encoded using x-www-form-urlencoded format and the resulting string is used as POST data. An exception is a call to FileReference.upload(), in which the variables are sent as separate fields in a multipart/form-data post.

You're clearly in the first case here.

From the Laravel Requests doc:

To obtain an instance of the current HTTP request via dependency injection, you should type-hint the Illuminate\Http\Request class on your controller constructor or method. The current request instance will automatically be injected by the service container.

The Request class API:

string|resource getContent(bool $asResource = false)

Returns the request body content.

Putting it together:

public function uploadFramegrab(Request $request) {
    $content = $request->getContent();
    $fileSize = strlen($content);
}

In Laravel 4:

$csrf = Request::header('X-CSRF-Token');  
// Add a header like this if you want to control filename from AS3
$fileName = Request::header('X-File-Name');  
$content = Request::getContent(); // This the raw JPG byte array
$fileSize = strlen($content);

Last time I checked Laravel uses php://input to read the request body. See this answer for more info.