Image Upload and Download

The next step in this tutorial is to allow users to upload a profile picture. This image will be displayed on the homepage in front of each author's story.

To do this, you will use Foal's storage system. It allows you to validate and save the files uploaded by the client. These files can be saved to your local drive or in the cloud using AWS S3. We won't use the cloud feature in this tutorial, but you can find out how to configure it here.

Server Side

First, install the package.

npm install @foal/storage

Update the configuration in config/default.json to specify the location of files that the disk manager can access.

{
  "port": "env(PORT)",
  "settings": {
    ...
    "disk": {
      "local": {
        "directory": "assets"
      }
    }
  },
  ...
}

Then create the directory assets/images/profiles/uploaded where the profile images will be uploaded. Download the default profile image here and place it in the assets/images/profiles folder with the name default.png.

You are ready to create the controller. Generate a new one.

foal generate controller api/profile --register

Open the new file profile.controller.ts and add two new routes.

API endpoint	Method	Description
/api/profile/avatar	GET	Retrieves the user's profile image. If the optional query parameter userId is provided, the server returns the avatar of that user. Otherwise, it returns the avatar of the current user. If no user is authenticated or has no profile picture, a default image is returned.
/api/profile	POST	Updates the user profile. A name field and an optional avatar file are expected.

import { Context, dependency, File, Get, HttpResponseNoContent, Post, UserRequired, ValidateQueryParam } from '@foal/core';
import { Disk, ParseAndValidateFiles } from '@foal/storage';
import { User } from '../../entities';

export class ProfileController {
  @dependency
  disk: Disk;

  @Get('/avatar')
  @ValidateQueryParam('userId', { type: 'number' }, { required: false })
  async readProfileImage(ctx: Context<User|null>) {
    let user = ctx.user;

    const userId: number|undefined = ctx.request.query.userId;
    if (userId !== undefined) {
      user = await User.findOneBy({ id: userId })
    }

    if (!user || !user.avatar) {
      return this.disk.createHttpResponse('images/profiles/default.png');
    }

    return this.disk.createHttpResponse(user.avatar);
  }

  @Post()
  @UserRequired()
  @ParseAndValidateFiles(
    {
      avatar: { required: false, saveTo: 'images/profiles/uploaded' }
    },
    {
      type: 'object',
      properties: {
        name: { type: 'string', maxLength: 255 }
      },
      required: ['name']
    }
  )
  async updateProfileImage(ctx: Context<User>) {
    ctx.user.name = ctx.request.body.name;

    // Warning: File must be imported from `@foal/core`.
    const file: File|undefined = ctx.files.get('avatar')[0];
    if (file) {
      if (ctx.user.avatar) {
        await this.disk.delete(ctx.user.avatar);
      }
      ctx.user.avatar = file.path;
    }

    await ctx.user.save();

    return new HttpResponseNoContent();
  }

}

Go to http://localhost:3001/swagger and try to upload a profile picture. You must be logged in first.

You may have noticed the @dependency decorator for setting the disk: Disk property. This mechanism is called dependency injection and is particularly useful in unit testing. You can read more about it here

Client Side

On the client side, downloading the profile image is handled in the ProfileHeader.tsx and requests/profile.ts files.

Open the latter and implement the updateProfile function.

import axios from 'axios';

export async function updateProfile(username: string, avatar: File|null): Promise<void> {
  const formData = new FormData();
  formData.set('name', username);
  if (avatar) {
    formData.set('avatar', avatar);
  }

  await axios.post('/api/profile', formData, {
    headers: {
    'content-type': 'multipart/form-data'
    }
  });
}

Now, if you go back to http://localhost:3000/profile, you should be able to upload your profile picture.