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File Uploads

You can define files to be uploaded by the client using File.

Import File

Import File and UploadFile from flask_sugar:

from flask_sugar import Sugar, File, UploadFile

app = Sugar(__name__)


@app.post("/upload")
def upload(file: UploadFile = File(...)):
    return {"filename": file.filename}

Define File parameters

Create file parameters the same way you would for Cookie or Header:

from flask_sugar import Sugar, File, UploadFile

app = Sugar(__name__)


@app.post("/upload")
def upload(file: UploadFile = File(...)):
    return {"filename": file.filename}

UploadFile

UploadFile is an alias to werkzeug.datastructures.FileStorage, it has the following attributes:

  • filename
  • name
  • stream
  • content_type
  • content_length
  • mimetype
  • mimetype_params
  • save(dst, buffer_size=16384)
  • close()

What is "Form Data"

The way HTML forms (<form></form>) sends the data to the server normally uses a "special" encoding for that data, it's different from JSON.

Flask Sugar will make sure to read that data from the right place instead of JSON.

Technical Details

Data from forms is normally encoded using the "media type" application/x-www-form-urlencoded when it doesn't include files.

But when the form includes files, it is encoded as multipart/form-data. If you use File, Flask Sugar will know it has to get the files from the correct part of the body.

If you want to read more about these encodings and form fields, head to the MDN web docs for POST.

Warning

You can declare multiple File and Form parameters in a path operation, but you can't also declare Body fields that you expect to receive as JSON, as the request will have the body encoded using multipart/form-data instead of application/json.

This is not a limitation of Flask Sugar, it's part of the HTTP protocol.

Multiple file uploads

It's possible to upload several files at the same time.

They would be associated to the same "form field" sent using "form data".

To use that, declare a List of UploadFile:

from typing import List

from flask_sugar import Sugar, File, UploadFile

app = Sugar(__name__)


@app.post("/upload")
def upload(files: List[UploadFile] = File(...)):
    return {"filenames": [file.filename for file in files]}

You will receive, as declared, a list of UploadFiles.

Recap

Use File to declare files to be uploaded as input parameters (as form data).