Custom MultipartFormDataStreamProvider in C#

Frequently, when we manage multipart/form requests and we send them to the server, we might want to add some additional informations.

Perhaps we might want to split a big file in chunks and we might want to add some additional informations like the id of the upload session, the chunk number, the file name and the total chunks number that compose the file.

Suppose that we use for the client side Angularjs, the code of the controller is quite simple:

.....

public AddAttachment(event) {
let attachments = event.target.files;
if (attachments.length > 0) {
let file: File = attachments[0];

this.$http.get(this.url + "/GetCorrelationId").then((correlationId) => {
let chunks = this.SplitFile(file);

for (let i = 0; i < chunks.length; i++) {
let formData = new FormData();
formData.append("file", chunks[i], file.name);
formData.append("correlationId", correlationId.data);
formData.append("chunkNumber", i + 1);
formData.append("totalChunks", chunks.length);

this.$http.post(this.url, formData, { headers: { "Content-Type": undefined } }).then((result) => {
if(result.data) {
this.Load();
}
});
}
});
}
}

private SplitFile(file: File): Array<Blob> {
let chunks = Array<Blob>();
let size = file.size;
let chunkSize = 1024 * 1024 * 10;
let start = 0;
let end = chunkSize;

while (start < size) {
let chunk = file.slice(start, end);
chunks.push(chunk);
start = end;
end += chunkSize;
}

return chunks;
}

.....

The AddAttachment method is invoked by the view; once the file is retrieved, the split method generate the array of chunks.

Then, with the $http factory we send every single chunks to the server with additional metadata.

In order to read these datas from the server side, we need to implement a custom MultipartFormData stream provider.

The first step is define the interface of our provider:

public interface ICustomMultipartFormDataStreamProvider
{
string ChunkFilename { get; }
int ChunkNumber { get; }
string CorrelationId { get; }
string Filename { get; }
int TotalChunks { get; }
void ExtractValues();
}

The interface has the same properties sent by the client, and a method that deal with extract the values from the message.

Now we can proceed with the implementation:

public class CustomMultipartFormDataStreamProvider : MultipartFormDataStreamProvider, ICustomMultipartFormDataStreamProvider
{
public string Filename { get; private set; }
public string ChunkFilename { get; private set; }
public string CorrelationId { get; private set; }
public int ChunkNumber { get; private set; }
public int TotalChunks { get; private set; }

public CustomMultipartFormDataStreamProvider(string rootPath) : base(rootPath) { }

public CustomMultipartFormDataStreamProvider(string rootPath, int bufferSize) : base(rootPath, bufferSize) { }

public override Task ExecutePostProcessingAsync()
{
foreach (var file in Contents)
{
var parameters = file.Headers.ContentDisposition.Parameters;
var filename = ExtractParameter(parameters, "filename");
if (filename != null) Filename = filename.Value.Trim('\"');
}

return base.ExecutePostProcessingAsync();
}

public void ExtractValues()
{
var chunkFileName = FileData[0].LocalFileName;
var correlationId = FormData?.GetValues("correlationId");
var chunkNumber = FormData?.GetValues("chunkNumber");
var totalChunks = FormData?.GetValues("totalChunks");

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(chunkFileName) || correlationId == null || chunkNumber == null || totalChunks == null)
throw new Exception("Missing values in UploadChunk session.");

ChunkFilename = chunkFileName;
CorrelationId = correlationId.First();
ChunkNumber = int.Parse(chunkNumber.First());
TotalChunks = int.Parse(totalChunks.First());
}

private NameValueHeaderValue ExtractParameter(ICollection<NameValueHeaderValue> parameters, string name)
{
return parameters.FirstOrDefault(p => p.Name.Equals(name, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));
}
}

The class inherits from MultipartFormDataStreamProvider base class and implements our interface.

Two methods are implemented; the first one override ExecutePostProcessingAsync and in this method we retrieve the name of the main file.

The second one extract the custom parameters from the FormData; we retrieve also the chunk filename from the FileData object; this information is included as default information in the MultipartFormData message.

Now the informations are retrieved and we can use the custom provider in a service:

public async Task<bool> UploadChunk(HttpRequestMessage request)
{
var provider = new CustomMultipartFormDataStreamProvider(_path);
await request.Content.ReadAsMultipartAsync(provider);
provider.ExtractValues();

.....
}

The metadata will be available in the provider object.

You can find the source code here.