What is a blob URL and why it is used?

Question

Blob URLs (ref W3C, official name) or Object-URLs (ref. MDN and method name) are used with a Blob or a File object.

src="blob:https://crap.crap" I opened the blob url that was in src of video it gave a error and i can't open but was working with the src tag how it is possible?

Blob URLs can only be generated internally by the browser. URL.createObjectURL() will create a special reference to the Blob or File object which later can be released using URL.revokeObjectURL(). These URLs can only be used locally in the single instance of the browser and in the same session (ie. the life of the page/document).

What is blob url?
Why it is used?

Blob URL/Object URL is a pseudo protocol to allow Blob and File objects to be used as URL source for things like images, download links for binary data and so forth.

For example, you can not hand an Image object raw byte-data as it would not know what to do with it. It requires for example images (which are binary data) to be loaded via URLs. This applies to anything that require an URL as source. Instead of uploading the binary data, then serve it back via an URL it is better to use an extra local step to be able to access the data directly without going via a server.

It is also a better alternative to Data-URI which are strings encoded as Base-64. The problem with Data-URI is that each char takes two bytes in JavaScript. On top of that a 33% is added due to the Base-64 encoding. Blobs are pure binary byte-arrays which does not have any significant overhead as Data-URI does, which makes them faster and smaller to handle.

Can i make my own blob url on a server?

No, Blob URLs/Object URLs can only be made internally in the browser. You can make Blobs and get File object via the File Reader API, although BLOB just means Binary Large OBject and is stored as byte-arrays. A client can request the data to be sent as either ArrayBuffer or as a Blob. The server should send the data as pure binary data. Databases often uses Blob to describe binary objects as well, and in essence we are talking basically about byte-arrays.

if you have then Additional detail

You need to encapsulate the binary data as a BLOB object, then use URL.createObjectURL() to generate a local URL for it:

var blob = new Blob([arrayBufferWithPNG], {type: "image/png"}),
    url = URL.createObjectURL(blob),
    img = new Image();

img.onload = function() {
    URL.revokeObjectURL(this.src);     // clean-up memory
    document.body.appendChild(this);   // add image to DOM
}

img.src = url;                         // can now "stream" the bytes

Note that URL may be prefixed in webkit-browsers, so use:

var url = (URL || webkitURL).createObjectURL(...);

This Javascript function purports to show the difference between the Blob File API and the Data API to download a JSON file in the client browser:

/**
 * Save a text as file using HTML <a> temporary element and Blob
 * @author Loreto Parisi
 */

var saveAsFile = function(fileName, fileContents) {
    if (typeof(Blob) != 'undefined') { // Alternative 1: using Blob
        var textFileAsBlob = new Blob([fileContents], {type: 'text/plain'});
        var downloadLink = document.createElement("a");
        downloadLink.download = fileName;
        if (window.webkitURL != null) {
            downloadLink.href = window.webkitURL.createObjectURL(textFileAsBlob);
        } else {
            downloadLink.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(textFileAsBlob);
            downloadLink.onclick = document.body.removeChild(event.target);
            downloadLink.style.display = "none";
            document.body.appendChild(downloadLink);
        }
        downloadLink.click();
    } else { // Alternative 2: using Data
        var pp = document.createElement('a');
        pp.setAttribute('href', 'data:text/plain;charset=utf-8,' +
            encodeURIComponent(fileContents));
        pp.setAttribute('download', fileName);
        pp.onclick = document.body.removeChild(event.target);
        pp.click();
    }
} // saveAsFile

/* Example */
var jsonObject = {"name": "John", "age": 30, "car": null};
saveAsFile('out.json', JSON.stringify(jsonObject, null, 2));

The function is called like saveAsFile('out.json', jsonString);. It will create a ByteStream immediately recognized by the browser that will download the generated file directly using the File API URL.createObjectURL.

In the else, it is possible to see the same result obtained via the href element plus the Data API, but this has several limitations that the Blob API has not.

I have modified working solution to handle both the case.. when video is uploaded and when image is uploaded .. hope it will help some.

HTML

<input type="file" id="fileInput">
<div> duration: <span id='sp'></span><div>

Javascript

var fileEl = document.querySelector("input");

fileEl.onchange = function(e) {


    var file = e.target.files[0]; // selected file

    if (!file) {
        console.log("nothing here");
        return;
    }

    console.log(file);
    console.log('file.size-' + file.size);
    console.log('file.type-' + file.type);
    console.log('file.acutalName-' + file.name);

    let start = performance.now();

    var mime = file.type, // store mime for later
        rd = new FileReader(); // create a FileReader

    if (/video/.test(mime)) {

        rd.onload = function(e) { // when file has read:


            var blob = new Blob([e.target.result], {
                    type: mime
                }), // create a blob of buffer
                url = (URL || webkitURL).createObjectURL(blob), // create o-URL of blob
                video = document.createElement("video"); // create video element
            //console.log(blob);
            video.preload = "metadata"; // preload setting

            video.addEventListener("loadedmetadata", function() { // when enough data loads
                console.log('video.duration-' + video.duration);
                console.log('video.videoHeight-' + video.videoHeight);
                console.log('video.videoWidth-' + video.videoWidth);
                //document.querySelector("div")
                //  .innerHTML = "Duration: " + video.duration + "s" + " <br>Height: " + video.videoHeight; // show duration
                (URL || webkitURL).revokeObjectURL(url); // clean up

                console.log(start - performance.now());
                // ... continue from here ...

            });
            video.src = url; // start video load
        };
    } else if (/image/.test(mime)) {
        rd.onload = function(e) {

            var blob = new Blob([e.target.result], {
                    type: mime
                }),
                url = URL.createObjectURL(blob),
                img = new Image();

            img.onload = function() {
                console.log('iamge');
                console.dir('this.height-' + this.height);
                console.dir('this.width-' + this.width);
                URL.revokeObjectURL(this.src); // clean-up memory
                console.log(start - performance.now()); // add image to DOM
            }

            img.src = url;

        };
    }

    var chunk = file.slice(0, 1024 * 1024 * 10); // .5MB
    rd.readAsArrayBuffer(chunk); // read file object

};

jsFiddle Url

https://jsfiddle.net/PratapDessai/0sp3b159/

What is blob url? Why it is used?

BLOB is just byte sequence. Browser recognize it as byte stream. It is used to get byte stream from source.

A Blob object represents a file-like object of immutable, raw data. Blobs represent data that isn't necessarily in a JavaScript-native format. The File interface is based on Blob, inheriting blob functionality and expanding it to support files on the user's system.

Can i make my own blob url on a server?

Yes you can there are serveral ways to do so for example try http://php.net/manual/en/function.ibase-blob-echo.php

Read more on

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Blob
• http://www.w3.org/TR/FileAPI/#dfn-Blob
• https://url.spec.whatwg.org/#urls