Example of doing a multipart upload in Go (golang)

multipart_upload.go

package main

import (
	"bytes"
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"log"
	"mime/multipart"
	"net/http"
	"os"
	"path/filepath"
)

// Creates a new file upload http request with optional extra params
func newfileUploadRequest(uri string, params map[string]string, paramName, path string) (*http.Request, error) {
	file, err := os.Open(path)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	defer file.Close()

	body := &bytes.Buffer{}
	writer := multipart.NewWriter(body)
	part, err := writer.CreateFormFile(paramName, filepath.Base(path))
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	_, err = io.Copy(part, file)

	for key, val := range params {
		_ = writer.WriteField(key, val)
	}
	err = writer.Close()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", uri, body)
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", writer.FormDataContentType())
	return req, err
}

func main() {
	path, _ := os.Getwd()
	path += "/test.pdf"
	extraParams := map[string]string{
		"title":       "My Document",
		"author":      "Matt Aimonetti",
		"description": "A document with all the Go programming language secrets",
	}
	request, err := newfileUploadRequest("https://google.com/upload", extraParams, "file", "/tmp/doc.pdf")
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	client := &http.Client{}
	resp, err := client.Do(request)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	} else {
		body := &bytes.Buffer{}
		_, err := body.ReadFrom(resp.Body)
		if err != nil {
			log.Fatal(err)
		}
                resp.Body.Close()
		fmt.Println(resp.StatusCode)
		fmt.Println(resp.Header)

		fmt.Println(body)
	}
}

Yet another example:

func uploadFileMultipart(url string, path string) (*http.Response, error) {
	f, err := os.OpenFile(path, os.O_RDONLY, 0644)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	// Reduce number of syscalls when reading from disk.
	bufferedFileReader := bufio.NewReader(f)
	defer f.Close()

	// Create a pipe for writing from the file and reading to
	// the request concurrently.
	bodyReader, bodyWriter := io.Pipe()
	formWriter := multipart.NewWriter(bodyWriter)

	// Store the first write error in writeErr.
	var (
		writeErr error
		errOnce  sync.Once
	)
	setErr := func(err error) {
		if err != nil {
			errOnce.Do(func() { writeErr = err })
		}
	}
	go func() {
		partWriter, err := formWriter.CreateFormFile("file", path)
		setErr(err)
		_, err = io.Copy(partWriter, bufferedFileReader)
		setErr(err)
		setErr(formWriter.Close())
		setErr(bodyWriter.Close())
	}()

	req, err := http.NewRequest(http.MethodPut, url, bodyReader)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	req.Header.Add("Content-Type", formWriter.FormDataContentType())

	// This operation will block until both the formWriter
	// and bodyWriter have been closed by the goroutine,
	// or in the event of a HTTP error.
	resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

	if writeErr != nil {
		return nil, writeErr
	}

	return resp, err
}

thank you.

Can I upload two or more files one times?

@donnol - jep, just call the "createFormFile" function multiple times

"https://google.com/upload" not found

Thanks a lot.. This is really useful.

Really useful, it works

@sebnyberg Hello, just wanted to understand about the comment "This operation will block until both the formWriter...". Could you please explain, thank you!

@sebnyberg Hello, just wanted to understand about the comment "This operation will block until both the formWriter...". Could you please explain, thank you!

Sure. The request reads from the provided reader until it returns io.EOF. For an io.Pipe, the reader-end will return io.EOF after the write-end is closed. That's what is meant by "blocking". If the bodyWriter is not closed, the the request will last forever (until conn timeout).

https://pkg.go.dev/io#PipeWriter.Close

Closing the formWriter isn't strictly necessary to send the request. However, the formWriters Close() writes a trailer to the multipart message that is required for the request to be valid.

https://pkg.go.dev/mime/multipart#Writer.Close

@sebnyberg Thank you very much! :)

If uploading specific format like gzip or server expect content other than octet-stream, better to use writer.CreatePart instead of formWriter.CreateFormFile

	part, err := writer.CreatePart(textproto.MIMEHeader{
		"Content-Type": []string{"application/x-gzip"},
		"Content-Disposition": []string{fmt.Sprintf(`form-data; name="%s"; filename="%s"`,
			"file", fi.Name())},
	})