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You are viewing the documentation for the 2.4.2 release in the 2.4.x series of releases. The latest stable release series is 3.0.x.

§Handling file upload

§Uploading files in a form using multipart/form-data

The standard way to upload files in a web application is to use a form with a special multipart/form-data encoding, which allows mixing of standard form data with file attachments. Please note: the HTTP method for the form has to be POST (not GET).

Start by writing an HTML form:

@form(action = routes.Application.upload, 'enctype -> "multipart/form-data") {

    <input type="file" name="picture">

    <p>
        <input type="submit">
    </p>

}

Now let’s define the upload action:

public static play.mvc.Result upload() {
    play.mvc.Http.MultipartFormData body = request().body().asMultipartFormData();
    play.mvc.Http.MultipartFormData.FilePart picture = body.getFile("picture");
    if (picture != null) {
        String fileName = picture.getFilename();
        String contentType = picture.getContentType();
        java.io.File file = picture.getFile();
        return ok("File uploaded");
    } else {
        flash("error", "Missing file");
        return badRequest();
    }
}

§Direct file upload

Another way to send files to the server is to use Ajax to upload files asynchronously from a form. In this case, the request body will not be encoded as multipart/form-data, but will just contain the plain file contents.

public static play.mvc.Result upload() {
    java.io.File file = request().body().asRaw().asFile();
    return ok("File uploaded");
}

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