Uploaded Files

Uploading files in an API application is crucial, and Warlock provides a simple way to handle file uploads.

How it works

Uploaded files are used in multipart/form-data requests, and Warlock handles them automatically.

Handling uploaded file

To access a an uploaded file, use request.file() method, which returns a File object.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

import { Request, Response } from "@mongez/warlock";

export async function uploadAvatar(request: Request, response: Response) {
  const avatar = request.file("avatar");

  // ...
}

This method will return an instance of UploadedFile if it exists, otherwise it will return null.

UploadedFile

Now we got the uploaded file, let's see what we can do with it.

Getting the file name

To get the file name, use name property.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

import { Request, Response } from "@mongez/warlock";

export async function uploadAvatar(request: Request, response: Response) {
  const avatar = request.file("avatar");

  if (!avatar) {
    return response.error("No file uploaded");
  }

  const fileName = avatar.name;
}

Get file extension

To get the file extension, use extension property.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...
const extension = avatar.extension;

Get file size

To get the file size, use size method.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...
const size = await avatar.size();

tip

Please note that the file size is being calculated on demand, it means that the size of the uploaded file will be calculated only when calling size() method.

info

When calling size() method multiple times, it will cache the size of the file to avoid calculating it again.

Get file mime type

To get the file mime type, use mimeType property.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...

const mimeType = avatar.mimeType;

Saving files

All uploaded files are stored inside storage/uploads directory, in that sense, we need to pass only the relative path to the saveTo() method.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...

const path = await avatar.saveTo("avatars");

This method accepts the relative path to the storage path directory, it will create the directory if it doesn't exist and the file will be saved with the same name.

danger

If the file already exists, it will be overridden.

The saveTo method will return the relative path of the file without the storage path, for example if the storage path is storage/uploads, and the file is saved to storage/uploads/avatars/avatar.png, the saveTo method will return avatars/avatar.png.

Saving files with custom name

If you want to rename the file when saving it, use saveAs method, it accept two arguments, the directory that will be saved into and the file name (with the extension).

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...
const path = await avatar.saveAs("avatars", "avatar.png");

Saving file with random name

If you are creating an uploading app that you don't really care about the file name, it is best too use random file name to avoid files overriding, in this case use the save() method, it accepts only the directory that will be saved into.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...
const path = await avatar.save("avatars");

Get file buffer

Sometime we need to get the file buffer, for example when we need to save the file to the database, or to upload it to a cloud storage service.

To get the file buffer, use buffer() method.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...
const buffer = await avatar.buffer();

Working with multiple files

It is pretty much the same as dealing with a single file, except that the return type is an array of UploadedFile objects.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

import { Request, Response } from "@mongez/warlock";

export async function uploadAvatar(request: Request, response: Response) {
  const avatars = request.files("avatars");

  if (!avatars.length) {
    return response.error("No file uploaded");
  }

  for (const avatar of avatars) {
    await avatar.save("avatars");
  }
}

::note Please note that request.file() can handle both single and multiple files, so you can use it instead of request.files() if you want to handle both cases. :::

Image Files

To check if the file is an image, use isImage property.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...
if (avatar.isImage) {
  // ...
}

Get image dimensions

To get the image dimensions, use dimensions() method.

src/app/users/controllers/upload-avatar.ts

//...
if (avatar.isImage) {
  const { width, height } = await avatar.dimensions();
}