Sending data & file from Angular to Web API - angularjs

Question

Trying to send some data & attachment(file) from AngularJS Client to MVC Web API and it does not work: I can see all the fields except of the attached file, which is shown as null
Here's the Model:
class Model{
... //the fields
public HttpPostedFileBase Photo { get; set; }//Attachment file, represented as an image
}
Here's the Web API:
public IHttpActionResult CreateModel([FromBody]Model model)
{
...
}
Here's the AngularJS code:
(function () {
angular.module("application")
.controller("homeCtrl", ["$scope", "entityService",
function ($scope, entityService) {
$scope.createModel = function (model)
{
entityService.createModel(model)
.then(function (data) {
console.log(data);
});
};
$scope.model = {
FirstName: "John",
LastName: "Doe"
};
}]);
})();
"use strict";
(function () {
angular.module("application")
.factory("entityService", ["akFileUploaderService", function (akFileUploaderService) {
var createModel = function (model) {
return akFileUploaderService.saveModel(model, "/api/CreateModel");
};
return {
createModel: createModel
};
}]);
})();
(function () {
"use strict"
angular.module("akFileUploader", [])
.factory("akFileUploaderService", ["$q", "$http",
function ($q, $http) {
var saveModel = function (data, url) {
var deferred = $q.defer();
$http({
url: url,
method: "POST",
data: JSON.stringify(data),
transformRequest: angular.identity,
headers: { 'Content-Type': "application/json" }
}).success(function (result) {
deferred.resolve(result);
}).error(function (result, status) {
deferred.reject(status);
});
return deferred.promise;
};
return {
saveModel: saveModel
}
}])
.directive("akFileModel", ["$parse",
function ($parse) {
return {
restrict: "A",
link: function (scope, element, attrs) {
var model = $parse(attrs.akFileModel);
var modelSetter = model.assign;
element.bind("change", function () {
scope.$apply(function () {
modelSetter(scope, element[0].files[0]);
});
});
}
};
}]);
})(window, document);
And here's HTML View:
....
<div class="form-group">
<label for="attachment">Photo:</label>
<div class="col-md-10">
<input type="file" name="attachment" class="form-control" data-ak-file-model="model.Photo" />
</div>
</div>
<button type="button" ng-disabled="newForm.$invalid" ng-click="createModel(model)" class="btn btn-primary">
Create
</button>

Answer 1

WebApi doesn't (currently) use the same mechanism as MVC with HttpPostedFileBase. See this question answer as an example to handling file uploads - a sample is below (simplified from the answer):
public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> AddFile()
{
string root = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/temp/uploads");
var provider = new MultipartFormDataStreamProvider(root);
var result = await Request.Content.ReadAsMultipartAsync(provider);
foreach (var key in provider.FormData.AllKeys)
{
foreach (var val in provider.FormData.GetValues(key))
{
if (key == "aFormValue")
{
// do something with form data value
}
}
}
return this.Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
}
In a nutshell, you have to read the contents of the request picking out the file (and sometimes form) parts. You can use the built-in MultipartFormDataStreamProvider class and ReadAsMultipartAsync method on the HttpContent to do this.
The method above assumes you want to save to disk, when you want to put the file somewhere else it gets a little more tricky and you have to roll your own implementation of MultipartFormDataStreamProvider to handle this.