How to pass a single Image with Intent which uses content uri (_not_ file uri) in Android

Question

(I have read a lot of similar questions, but bear with me here)

I need to send an image from one Activity (custom camera acitvity), where the second Activity is to upload the image to Picasa Web Album via Google API.

Every example I've found goes something like this:

File f = new File(cacheDir, "image_name.jpg");
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND); 
intent.setType("image/jpeg"); 
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, Uri.fromFile(f)); 
startActivity(intent);

This works perfectly fine when I use the standard Android Picasa upload activity (or any other sharing app). I can also upload photos via the Picasa example app I am using, when sharing the image from gallery/camera etc.

But I cannot figure out how to build an Intent which uses a "content://---" uri and pass this to another application (neither for this example app or the Picasa standard app)...

Specificially: How can I create an Intent which is compatible with the code below (i.e. uses "content://" uri instead of "file://" uri)?

  static class SendData {
    String fileName;
    Uri uri;
    String contentType;
    long contentLength;

    SendData(Intent intent, ContentResolver contentResolver) {
    Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();
    if (extras.containsKey(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM)) {
        Uri uri = this.uri = (Uri) extras.get(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM);
        String scheme = uri.getScheme();

        if (scheme.equals("content"))  {
            Cursor cursor = contentResolver.query(uri, null, null, null, null);
            cursor.moveToFirst();
            this.fileName = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(Images.Media.DISPLAY_NAME));
            this.contentType = intent.getType();
            this.contentLength = cursor.getLong(cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(Images.Media.SIZE));
        }   
      }
    }
  }

Retrieving the File-information from a File uri manually leads to NullPointerException with the Google Http Request used in the app.

Hardcoding the Content uri works. E.g:

 uploadIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, Uri.parse("content://media/external/images/media/11"));

So given a File, you need a Content URI. Is that what you are asking? — Vikram Bodicherla, Jan 31 '12 at 04:46

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 31 '12 at 06:12

Information related to Media files is stored by the MediaStore, which is a ContentProvider (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/MediaStore.Images.html)

MediaStore.Images.DATA column corresponds to the file path and MediaStore.Images._ID column corresponds to the ID.

You need to query for the ID corresponding to your file path and then create a ContentUri out of it (which will be MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI + id if the image is on the external storage, I'll try to think of a better way to translate the ID into a Content Uri).

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/MediaStore.Images.Media.html#query(android.content.ContentResolver, android.net.Uri, java.lang.String[]

Yeah, that works fine. Thanks. Found a related question thread here http://stackoverflow.com/a/7945572/1179106: Code example that finds the ID of an image given the name, provider and application context. — kjartan, Feb 01 '12 at 05:53

How to pass a single Image with Intent which uses content uri (_not_ file uri) in Android

Specificially: How can I create an Intent which is compatible with the code below (i.e. uses "content://" uri instead of "file://" uri)?

1 Answers1