Creating Files

To create files (FileEntry entities) in the Documents and Media library, you must use the DLAppService interface’s addFileEntry methods. There are three such methods, and they differ by the data type used to create the file. Click each method to see a full description of the method and its parameters:

• addFileEntry(..., byte[] bytes, ...)

• addFileEntry(..., File file, ...)

• addFileEntry(..., InputStream is, long size, ...)

Note that the following arguments are optional:

• sourceFileName: This keeps track of the uploaded file. It infers the content type if that file has an extension.
• mimeType: Defaults to a binary stream. If omitted, Documents and Media tries to infer the type from the file extension.
• description: The file’s description to display in the portal.
• changeLog: Descriptions for file versions.
• is and size: In the method that takes an InputStream, you can use null for the is parameter. If you do this, however, you must use 0 for the size parameter.

Follow these steps to create a file via the DLAppService method addFileEntry. Note that these steps use the method that contains InputStream:

1. Get a reference to DLAppService:

   @Reference
   private DLAppService _dlAppService;
   

   For more information on this, see the section on getting a service reference in the getting started tutorial.

2. Get the data needed to populate the addFileEntry method’s arguments. Since it’s common to create a file with data submitted by the end user, you can extract the data from the request. This example does so via UploadPortletRequest and ParamUtil, but you can get the data any way you wish:

   long repositoryId = ParamUtil.getLong(uploadPortletRequest, "repositoryId");
   long folderId = ParamUtil.getLong(uploadPortletRequest, "folderId");
   String sourceFileName = uploadPortletRequest.getFileName("file");
   String title = ParamUtil.getString(uploadPortletRequest, "title");
   String description = ParamUtil.getString(uploadPortletRequest, "description");
   String changeLog = ParamUtil.getString(uploadPortletRequest, "changeLog");
   boolean majorVersion = ParamUtil.getBoolean(uploadPortletRequest, "majorVersion");
   
   try (InputStream inputStream = uploadPortletRequest.getFileAsStream("file")) {
   
       String contentType = uploadPortletRequest.getContentType("file");
       long size = uploadPortletRequest.getSize("file");
   
       ServiceContext serviceContext = ServiceContextFactory.getInstance(
               DLFileEntry.class.getName(), uploadPortletRequest);
   }
   

   For more information on getting repository and folder IDs, see the getting started tutorial’s sections on specifying repositories and folders. For more information on ServiceContext, see the tutorial Understanding ServiceContext.

3. Call the service reference’s addFileEntry method with the data from the previous step. Note that this example does so inside the previous step’s try-with-resources statement:

   try (InputStream inputStream = uploadPortletRequest.getFileAsStream("file")) {
   
       ...
   
       FileEntry fileEntry = _dlAppService.addFileEntry(
                           repositoryId, folderId, sourceFileName, contentType, title, 
                           description, changeLog, inputStream, size, serviceContext);
   }
   

   The method returns a FileEntry object, which this example sets to a variable for later use. Note, however, that you don’t have to do this.

You can find the full code for this example in the updateFileEntry method of Liferay DXP’s EditFileEntryMVCActionCommand class. This class uses the Documents and Media API to implement almost all the FileEntry actions that the Documents and Media app supports. Also note that this updateFileEntry method, as well as the rest of EditFileEntryMVCActionCommand, contains additional logic to suit the specific needs of the Documents and Media app.

Related Topics

Updating Files

Deleting Files

Moving Folders and Files

Creating Folders

Creating File Shortcuts