In your comment below, you inform us that you are using the $_FILES syntax to retrieve the files. That means that you want to create a multipart/form-data request. The process is basically:
Specify a boundary for your multipart/form-data request.
Specify a Content-Type of the request that specifies that it multipart/form-data and what the boundary is.
Create body of request, separating the individual components (each of the posted values as well as between each upload).
For more detail, see RFC 7578. Anyway, in Swift 3 and later, this might look like:
/// Create request
///
/// - parameter userid: The userid to be passed to web service
/// - parameter password: The password to be passed to web service
/// - parameter email: The email address to be passed to web service
///
/// - returns: The `URLRequest` that was created
func createRequest(userid: String, password: String, email: String) throws -> URLRequest {
let parameters = [
"user_id" : userid,
"email" : email,
"password" : password] // build your dictionary however appropriate
let boundary = generateBoundaryString()
let url = URL(string: "https://example.com/imageupload.php")!
var request = URLRequest(url: url)
request.httpMethod = "POST"
request.setValue("multipart/form-data; boundary=(boundary)", forHTTPHeaderField: "Content-Type")
let fileURL = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "image1", withExtension: "png")!
request.httpBody = try createBody(with: parameters, filePathKey: "file", urls: [fileURL], boundary: boundary)
return request
}
/// Create body of the `multipart/form-data` request
///
/// - parameter parameters: The optional dictionary containing keys and values to be passed to web service.
/// - parameter filePathKey: The optional field name to be used when uploading files. If you supply paths, you must supply filePathKey, too.
/// - parameter urls: The optional array of file URLs of the files to be uploaded.
/// - parameter boundary: The `multipart/form-data` boundary.
///
/// - returns: The `Data` of the body of the request.
private func createBody(with parameters: [String: String]?, filePathKey: String, urls: [URL], boundary: String) throws -> Data {
var body = Data()
parameters?.forEach { (key, value) in
body.append("--(boundary)
")
body.append("Content-Disposition: form-data; name="(key)"
")
body.append("(value)
")
}
for url in urls {
let filename = url.lastPathComponent
let data = try Data(contentsOf: url)
let mimetype = mimeType(for: filename)
body.append("--(boundary)
")
body.append("Content-Disposition: form-data; name="(filePathKey)"; filename="(filename)"
")
body.append("Content-Type: (mimetype)
")
body.append(data)
body.append("
")
}
body.append("--(boundary)--
")
return body
}
/// Create boundary string for multipart/form-data request
///
/// - returns: The boundary string that consists of "Boundary-" followed by a UUID string.
private func generateBoundaryString() -> String {
return "Boundary-(UUID().uuidString)"
}
/// Determine mime type on the basis of extension of a file.
///
/// This requires `import MobileCoreServices`.
///
/// - parameter path: The path of the file for which we are going to determine the mime type.
///
/// - returns: Returns the mime type if successful. Returns `application/octet-stream` if unable to determine mime type.
private func mimeType(for path: String) -> String {
let pathExtension = URL(fileURLWithPath: path).pathExtension as NSString
guard
let uti = UTTypeCreatePreferredIdentifierForTag(kUTTagClassFilenameExtension, pathExtension, nil)?.takeRetainedValue(),
let mimetype = UTTypeCopyPreferredTagWithClass(uti, kUTTagClassMIMEType)?.takeRetainedValue()
else {
return "application/octet-stream"
}
return mimetype as String
}
With:
extension Data {
/// Append string to Data
///
/// Rather than littering my code with calls to `data(using: .utf8)` to convert `String` values to `Data`, this wraps it in a nice convenient little extension to Data. This defaults to converting using UTF-8.
///
/// - parameter string: The string to be added to the `Data`.
mutating func append(_ string: String, using encoding: String.Encoding = .utf8) {
if let data = string.data(using: encoding) {
append(data)
}
}
}
Having all of this, you now need to submit this request. I would advise this is done asynchronously. For example, using URLSession, you would do something like:
let request: URLRequest
do {
request = try createRequest(userid: userid, password: password, email: email)
} catch {
print(error)
return
}
let task = URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: request) { data, response, error in
guard let data = data, error == nil else {
// handle error here
print(error ?? "Unknown error")
return
}
// parse `data` here, then parse it
// note, if you want to update the UI, make sure to dispatch that to the main queue, e.g.:
//
// DispatchQueue.main.async {
// // update your UI and model objects here
// }
}
task.resume()
For Swift 2 renditions, see previous revision of this answer.
