(Ruby) Building a multipart/form-data Request for HTTP Upload

Uploading files to a web server typically requires building a multipart/form-data request where the files are contained in the sub-parts of the MIME request.

Note: HTTP uploads require code on the server-side to receive the upload. For example, see Complete C# ASP.NET HTTP Upload Example

This example produces the following HTTP multipart/form-data request:

POST /something HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=------------070002080409050901090203
Host: domain
Content-Length: 546

--------------070002080409050901090203
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="fileA"; filename="fileA.txt"
Content-Type: text/plain

This is the contents of file A
--------------070002080409050901090203
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="fileB"; filename="fileB.txt"
Content-Type: text/plain

This is the contents of file B
--------------070002080409050901090203
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="fileC"; filename="fileC.txt"
Content-Type: text/plain

This is the contents of file C
--------------070002080409050901090203--

Chilkat Ruby Downloads install from rubygems.org gem install chilkat or download... Ruby Library for Windows, MacOS, Linux, Alpine Linux

require 'chilkat'

# This example demonstrates building a multipart/form-data request.

req = Chilkat::CkHttpRequest.new()

# The ContentType, HttpVerb, and Path properties should
# always be explicitly set.
req.put_HttpVerb("POST")
req.put_Path("/something")
req.put_ContentType("multipart/form-data")

# The contents and name of each file to be uploaded is provided
# by calling any of the following methods:
# AddBytesForUpload
# AddBytesForUpload2
# AddFileForUpload
# AddFileForUpload2
# AddStringForUpload
# AddStringForUpload2

# For this example, we'll provide the contents of the files to be uploaded
# directly as in-memory strings.
req.AddStringForUpload("fileA","fileA.txt","This is the contents of file A","utf-8")
req.AddStringForUpload("fileB","fileB.txt","This is the contents of file B","utf-8")
req.AddStringForUpload("fileC","fileC.txt","This is the contents of file C","utf-8")

# View the request that would be sent if SynchronousRequest was called:
requestMime = req.generateRequestText()
print requestMime + "\n";

# A few important comments about the HTTP request that is generated:
# 
# 1) Chilkat automatically generates a random boundary string.   In 99.999% of cases, this should 
#    be sufficient.
# 2) The Content-Length header is automatically generated based on the actual length of the MIME message
#    that follows the intial (topmost) MIME header.
# 3) The HOST header will automatically get filled in with the actual domain when SynchronousRequest
#    is called