How do I get an image from the iOS photo library and display it in UIWebView

Question

I've seen a lot of examples where you use the UIImage for outputting an image. I would like the output to be set to a UIWebView because I want to put some additional HTML formatting around the image.

I want to get the photo library to return the relative path of an image stored on the iOS device, so that the I can put that in the 'src' attribute of the 'img' HTML tag.

Is this possible?

---

Edit 1

I had to modify my code for what I wanted but this doesn't seem to work.

- (void)imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo:(NSDictionary *)info
{
    //Get Image URL from Library
    NSURL *urlPath = [info valueForKey:UIImagePickerControllerReferenceURL];
    NSString *urlString = [urlPath absoluteString];
    NSLog(urlString);

    NSURL *root = [[NSBundle mainBundle] bundleURL];
    NSString *html;
    html = @"<img src='";
    html = [html stringByAppendingString:urlString];
    html = [html stringByAppendingString:@"' />"];
    [MemeCanvas loadHTMLString:html baseURL:root];

    [picker dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:^{}];
}

I am able to log the asset-library URL but it doesn't seem to be displayed the image on the UIWebView. I don't know what I need to change the baseURL to.

Any help appreciated.

---

Edit 2

I changed UIImagePickerControllerReferenceURL to UIImagePickerControllerMediaURL and now it crashes because it doesnt like it when i append it to a string with stringByAppendingString:urlString

It gives me the error:

Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '*** -[__NSCFConstantString stringByAppendingString:]: nil argument'

Do you know what could be causing this?

Answer 1

[Updated to swift 4] You can use UIImagePickerController delegate to select the image (or url) you want to edit.

you can do this like this:

let pickerController = UIImagePickerController()
pickerController.sourceType = .photoLibrary
pickerController.delegate = self
self.navigationController?.present(pickerController, animated: true, completion: {
})

in the delegate implementation you can use the path of the image or the image itself:

// This method is called when an image has been chosen from the library or taken from the camera.

func imagePickerController(_ picker: UIImagePickerController, didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo info: [String : Any]) {    
   //You can retrieve the actual UIImage
   let image = info[UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage] as? UIImage
   //Or you can get the image url from AssetsLibrary
   let path = info[UIImagePickerControllerReferenceURL] as? URL
   picker.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
}

Answer 2

Swift 4

class ViewController: UIViewController {
    var pickedImage:UIImage?

    @IBAction func ActionChooseImage(sender:UIButton){
        let imagePickerController = UIImagePickerController()
        imagePickerController.sourceType = .photoLibrary
        imagePickerController.delegate = self
        self.present(imagePickerController, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }
}

extension ViewController: UIImagePickerControllerDelegate,UINavigationControllerDelegate {
    func imagePickerController(_ picker: UIImagePickerController, didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo info: [String : Any]) {
        let image = info[UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage] as? UIImage
        self.pickedImage = image

        picker.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
    }
}

Ref