Convert Data URI to File then append to FormData

Question

I've been trying to re-implement an HTML5 image uploader like the one on the Mozilla Hacks site, but that works with WebKit browsers. Part of the task is to extract an image file from the canvas object and append it to a FormData object for upload.

The issue is that while canvas has the toDataURL function to return a representation of the image file, the FormData object only accepts File or Blob objects from the File API.

The Mozilla solution used the following Firefox-only function on canvas:

var file = canvas.mozGetAsFile("foo.png");

...which isn't available on WebKit browsers. The best solution I could think of is to find some way to convert a Data URI into a File object, which I thought might be part of the File API, but I can't for the life of me find something to do that.

Is it possible? If not, any alternatives?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Firefox has canvas.toBlob() and canvas.mozGetAsFile() methods.

But other browsers do not.

We can get dataurl from canvas and then convert dataurl to blob object.

Here is my dataURLtoBlob() function. It's very short.

function dataURLtoBlob(dataurl) {
    var arr = dataurl.split(','), mime = arr[0].match(/:(.*?);/)[1],
        bstr = atob(arr[1]), n = bstr.length, u8arr = new Uint8Array(n);
    while(n--){
        u8arr[n] = bstr.charCodeAt(n);
    }
    return new Blob([u8arr], {type:mime});
}

Use this function with FormData to handle your canvas or dataurl.

For example:

var dataurl = canvas.toDataURL('image/jpeg',0.8);
var blob = dataURLtoBlob(dataurl);
var fd = new FormData();
fd.append("myFile", blob, "thumb.jpg");

Also, you can create a HTMLCanvasElement.prototype.toBlob method for non gecko engine browser.

if(!HTMLCanvasElement.prototype.toBlob){
    HTMLCanvasElement.prototype.toBlob = function(callback, type, encoderOptions){
        var dataurl = this.toDataURL(type, encoderOptions);
        var bstr = atob(dataurl.split(',')[1]), n = bstr.length, u8arr = new Uint8Array(n);
        while(n--){
            u8arr[n] = bstr.charCodeAt(n);
        }
        var blob = new Blob([u8arr], {type: type});
        callback.call(this, blob);
    };
}

Now canvas.toBlob() works for all modern browsers not only Firefox. For example:

canvas.toBlob(
    function(blob){
        var fd = new FormData();
        fd.append("myFile", blob, "thumb.jpg");
        //continue do something...
    },
    'image/jpeg',
    0.8
);

Answer 2

toDataURL gives you a string and you can put that string to a hidden input.

Answer 3

After playing around with a few things, I managed to figure this out myself.

First of all, this will convert a dataURI to a Blob:

function dataURItoBlob(dataURI) {
    // convert base64/URLEncoded data component to raw binary data held in a string
    var byteString;
    if (dataURI.split(',')[0].indexOf('base64') >= 0)
        byteString = atob(dataURI.split(',')[1]);
    else
        byteString = unescape(dataURI.split(',')[1]);

    // separate out the mime component
    var mimeString = dataURI.split(',')[0].split(':')[1].split(';')[0];

    // write the bytes of the string to a typed array
    var ia = new Uint8Array(byteString.length);
    for (var i = 0; i < byteString.length; i++) {
        ia[i] = byteString.charCodeAt(i);
    }

    return new Blob([ia], {type:mimeString});
}

From there, appending the data to a form such that it will be uploaded as a file is easy:

var dataURL = canvas.toDataURL('image/jpeg', 0.5);
var blob = dataURItoBlob(dataURL);
var fd = new FormData(document.forms[0]);
fd.append("canvasImage", blob);

Answer 4

Here is an ES6 version of Stoive's answer:

export class ImageDataConverter {
  constructor(dataURI) {
    this.dataURI = dataURI;
  }

  getByteString() {
    let byteString;
    if (this.dataURI.split(',')[0].indexOf('base64') >= 0) {
      byteString = atob(this.dataURI.split(',')[1]);
    } else {
      byteString = decodeURI(this.dataURI.split(',')[1]);
    }
    return byteString;
  }

  getMimeString() {
    return this.dataURI.split(',')[0].split(':')[1].split(';')[0];
  }

  convertToTypedArray() {
    let byteString = this.getByteString();
    let ia = new Uint8Array(byteString.length);
    for (let i = 0; i < byteString.length; i++) {
      ia[i] = byteString.charCodeAt(i);
    }
    return ia;
  }

  dataURItoBlob() {
    let mimeString = this.getMimeString();
    let intArray = this.convertToTypedArray();
    return new Blob([intArray], {type: mimeString});
  }
}

Usage:

const dataURL = canvas.toDataURL('image/jpeg', 0.5);
const blob = new ImageDataConverter(dataURL).dataURItoBlob();
let fd = new FormData(document.forms[0]);
fd.append("canvasImage", blob);

Answer 5

make it simple :D

function dataURItoBlob(dataURI,mime) {
    // convert base64 to raw binary data held in a string
    // doesn't handle URLEncoded DataURIs

    var byteString = window.atob(dataURI);

    // separate out the mime component


    // write the bytes of the string to an ArrayBuffer
    //var ab = new ArrayBuffer(byteString.length);
    var ia = new Uint8Array(byteString.length);
    for (var i = 0; i < byteString.length; i++) {
        ia[i] = byteString.charCodeAt(i);
    }

    // write the ArrayBuffer to a blob, and you're done
    var blob = new Blob([ia], { type: mime });

    return blob;
}

Answer 6

I had exactly the same problem as Ravinder Payal, and I've found the answer. Try this:

var dataURL = canvas.toDataURL("image/jpeg");

var name = "image.jpg";
var parseFile = new Parse.File(name, {base64: dataURL.substring(23)});