Flutter: How to get upload / download progress for http requests

Question

I am writing an app that uploads an image to a server, and instead of just showing a spinner, I'd love to be able to get progress on the status of that upload.

Additionally, I want to do this without using Multipart form data. This is the code I'm currently using - but it appears to be stalling out with a broken pipe, and I have zero feedback as to whether data is being sent to the server:

Future<String> _uploadFile(File assetFile) async {
  final url = <removed>;

  final stream = await assetFile.openRead();
  int length = assetFile.lengthSync();

  final client = new HttpClient();

  final request = await client.postUrl(Uri.parse(url));
request.headers.add(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE,  "application/octet-stream");
  request.contentLength = length;

  await request.addStream(stream);
  final response = await request.close();
  // response prociessing.
}

Is it possible to send large data as a stream without reading it into memory, and can I get progress on that upload with current dart / flutter APIs?

Answer 1

Screenshot (Null Safe):

---

This solution

1. Downloads an image from server.
2. Shows downloading progress.
3. After download, the image is saved to device storage.

Code:

import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;

class _MyPageState extends State<MyPage> {
  int _total = 0, _received = 0;
  late http.StreamedResponse _response;
  File? _image;
  final List<int> _bytes = [];

  Future<void> _downloadImage() async {
    _response = await http.Client()
        .send(http.Request('GET', Uri.parse('https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Pizigani_1367_Chart_10MB.jpg')));
    _total = _response.contentLength ?? 0;

    _response.stream.listen((value) {
      setState(() {
        _bytes.addAll(value);
        _received += value.length;
      });
    }).onDone(() async {
      final file = File('${(await getApplicationDocumentsDirectory()).path}/image.png');
      await file.writeAsBytes(_bytes);
      setState(() {
        _image = file;
      });
    });
  }

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton.extended(
        label: Text('${_received ~/ 1024}/${_total ~/ 1024} KB'),
        icon: Icon(Icons.file_download),
        onPressed: _downloadImage,
      ),
      body: Padding(
        padding: const EdgeInsets.all(20.0),
        child: Center(
          child: SizedBox.fromSize(
            size: Size(400, 300),
            child: _image == null ? Placeholder() : Image.file(_image!, fit: BoxFit.fill),
          ),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

Answer 2

The way that you are already using Stream means that you are not reading the whole file into memory. It's being read in as, probably, 64k chunks.

You could intercept the stream between the producer (File) and consumer (HttpClient) with a StreamTransformer, like this:

  int byteCount = 0;
  Stream<List<int>> stream2 = stream.transform(
    new StreamTransformer.fromHandlers(
      handleData: (data, sink) {
        byteCount += data.length;
        print(byteCount);
        sink.add(data);
      },
      handleError: (error, stack, sink) {},
      handleDone: (sink) {
        sink.close();
      },
    ),
  );
....
  await request.addStream(stream2);

You should see byteCount incrementing in 64k chunks.

Answer 3

Try dio library. The onSendProgress callback would be helpful.

example:

response = await dio.post(
  "http://www.example.com",
  data: data,
  onSendProgress: (int sent, int total) {
    print("$sent $total");
  },
);

Reference: https://github.com/flutterchina/dio/issues/103