How to choose image from phone (external / internal) storage and upload to sqlite database?

Question

I am working on an app and in the most important activity the following has to occur:

User fills a form and selects image from his phone.
When he clicks add data, I want to save the selected image (or it's path, anything that enables me to retrieve it later) to local database and retrieve later in other activity.

Things I have tried:

Save image to db as blob and retrieve later as bitmap, but obviously I learned that this fails when an image larger in size is used, the blob is set to null.
Tried getting file path of the selected image, but that file path is in a format similar to this: /document/msf:35

Then I tried to get the physical path using these SO answers: link1, link2, link3 and these answers in general: link4, link5.

Please don't mark this as duplicate because the solution in other answers don't work for me

Opening intent to upload photo:

// upload photo
photoActivityResultLauncher = registerForActivityResult(new ActivityResultContracts.StartActivityForResult(), new ActivityResultCallback<ActivityResult>() {
  public void onActivityResult(ActivityResult result) {
    if (result.getResultCode() == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
      Intent intent = result.getData();
      if (intent.getData() == null) {
        Log.d("AddTrip", "null data from image");
      }
      Uri uri = intent.getData();
      // processing here..
    }
  }
});

}
private void uploadPhotoClicked() {
  Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
  intent.setType("image/*");
  photoActivityResultLauncher.launch(intent);
}

Please suggest a solution to work around this and also the best practice to implement this type of functionality, I have tried using PathUtil, but it doesn't give path for some images.

If you're using a hosting service, you may want to upload images in `File Manager` or something (in `cPanel` for example) and store the URL in DB. — David Lee, Jul 03 '21 at 07:46
I am not using a hosting service. Everything that I store is in local sqlite db. — Ali Ahmed, Jul 03 '21 at 08:07
You should save uri.toString() to database. Not uri.getPath(). — blackapps, Jul 03 '21 at 09:29
And use ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT instead of ACTION_GET_CONTENT so you can take persistable uri permission on uri.toString(). — blackapps, Jul 03 '21 at 09:30

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 03 '21 at 11:08

As @blackapps suggested to use ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT, I found the solution. First I recieved Uri dataString by intent.getDataString(), then I parsed it so I could call takePersistableUriPermission(). Now I can retrieve the Uri from db and call setImageUri(uri), to retrieve the image.

photoActivityResultLauncher = registerForActivityResult(new ActivityResultContracts.StartActivityForResult(), new ActivityResultCallback<ActivityResult>() {
            public void onActivityResult(ActivityResult result) {
                if (result.getResultCode() == Activity.RESULT_OK) {
                    Intent intent = result.getData();
                    if (intent.getData() == null) {
                        Log.d("AddTrip", "null data from image");
                    }
                        image = intent.getDataString();
                        Uri uri = Uri.parse(image);
                         context.getContentResolver().takePersistableUriPermission(uri, Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION);

                        imageName.setText(image);
                }
            }
        });

    }

 private void uploadPhotoClicked() {
        Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT);
        intent.setType("image/*");
        photoActivityResultLauncher.launch(intent);
    }

Better: Uri uri = intent.getData(); – blackapps Jul 03 '21 at 14:57 — blackapps, Jul 03 '21 at 14:57

How to choose image from phone (external / internal) storage and upload to sqlite database?

1 Answers1