Upload multiple image file to php server from android app

Question

I am new to android programming. I have been trying to upload multiple images from my app to server using the following code. Here image[] array is posted to server with other data like username, password,etc which is in namevaluepair.

Java code:

public void post(String url, List<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs) {
    HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
    try {
        MultipartEntity entity = new MultipartEntity(
        HttpMultipartMode.BROWSER_COMPATIBLE);
        for (int index = 0; index < nameValuePairs.size(); index++) {
            if (nameValuePairs.get(index).getName()
                    .equalsIgnoreCase("image[]")) {
                // If the key equals to "image[]", we use FileBody to transfer
                // the data
                Log.d("key", "image");
                Log.d("image path", nameValuePairs.get(index).getName());
                entity.addPart(nameValuePairs.get(index).getName(),
                        new FileBody(new File(nameValuePairs.get(index)
                                .getValue())));

            } else {
                // Normal string data
                Log.d("tag", nameValuePairs.get(index).getName());
                // Log.d("tag", nameValuePairs.get(index).getValue());
                entity.addPart(
                        nameValuePairs.get(index).getName(),
                        new StringBody(nameValuePairs.get(index).getValue()));
            }
        }
        httpPost.setEntity(entity);
        HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
        HttpEntity enttiy = response.getEntity();
        Log.d("server response to post data", EntityUtils.toString(enttiy));
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Php code (Working version):

<?php
$target_path = "user_uploaded_photos/";
for($i=0;$i<count($_FILES["image"]["name"]);$i++){
$fileData = pathinfo(basename($_FILES["image"]["name"][$i]));
$username = $_POST['username'];
print_r($fileData);
$date = date('Y_m_d_H_i_s');
$newfilename = $username.$i.$date.".".$fileData['extension'];
if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES["image"]["tmp_name"][$i], $target_path."/".$newfilename))
{
    echo "The image {$_FILES['image']['name'][$i]} was successfully uploaded and added to the gallery<br />";
}
else
{
 echo "There was an error uploading the file {$_FILES['image']['name'][$i]}, please try again!<br />";
}
} $location = $_POST['location'];
//other fields and database operations ommitted

My problem is with the cakephp website we are using. For cake php I use name value pairs as follows:

nameValuePair
         .add(new BasicNameValuePair("UserDatum[user_id]", "2"));

Sending string values like this works for me. But when I declare images[] array images are uploaded but cannot be accessed from $_FILES. I have declared images[] array as follows:

for (String s : imagePath) {
            nameValuePair.add(new BasicNameValuePair("UserDatum[images][]",
                    s));
            Log.d("image-path", s);
        }

Here imagePath is arrayList of string containing path of images. Is declaring "UserDatum[images][]" in app the correct way to do it? It works with the posted php but in cake php only string values are posted and not images. I have tried other librarys like ion . But I am only able to upload one photo without using array structure. Please comment or point me to the right direction for posting multiple images and strings in a single post.

Answer 1

Whenever I post image data from an app, I use Base64 encoded image (see: Android post Base64 String to PHP )

That might give you a better route.