django-ajax-uploader provides a useful class you can use to easily implement ajax uploads.

It uses valum's great uploader: https://github.com/valums/file-uploader, and draws heavy inspiration and some code from https://github.com/alexkuhl/file-uploader

In short, it implements a callable class, AjaxFileUploader that you can use to handle uploads. By default, AjaxFileUploader assumes you want to upload to local storage, but you can select any other backend if desired or write your own (see backends section below). Pull requests welcome!

Updates

Version 0.2.1 is released, and contains:

JSON parsing of extra_context now properly handles datetimes. (Thanks to onyxfish)

Version 0.2 is released, and contains:

Optional fileLimit param for the uploader, to limit the number of allowed files. (Thanks to qnub)
fhahn's default_storage backend.

Version 0.1.1 is released, and contains:

Support for a CouchDB backend
A backwards-incompatible change to the location of the ajaxuploader static files. I try to avoid backwards incompatibilities, but since /js and /css are the proper conventions and the lib is relatively young, it seemed better to get things right now, instead of waiting. The static files are now at:
- {{STATIC_URL}}ajaxuploader/js/fileuploader.js
- {{STATIC_URL}}ajaxuploader/css/fileuploader.css

Usage

Step 1. Install django-ajax-uploader.

It's in pypi now, so simply:

pip install ajaxuploader

You may also need to install backend-specific dependences.

For the S3 backend, you will need boto. ( pip install boto )
For the MongoDB GridFS backend, you will need pymongo ( pip install pymongo )

Step 2. (Django 1.3 only)

For Django 1.3 you will need to have the app in your installed apps tuple for collect static to pick up the files.

First Add 'ajaxuploader' to you installed apps in settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    ...
    "ajaxuploader",
)

Then:

$ python manage.py collectstatic

Step 3. Include it in your app's views and urls.

You'll need to make sure to meet the csrf requirements to still make valum's uploader work. Code similar to the following should work:

views.py

from django.middleware.csrf import get_token
from django.shortcuts import render_to_response
from django.template import RequestContext

from ajaxuploader.views import AjaxFileUploader


def start(request):
    csrf_token = get_token(request)
    return render_to_response('import.html',
        {'csrf_token': csrf_token}, context_instance = RequestContext(request))

import_uploader = AjaxFileUploader()

urls.py

url(r'start$', views.start, name="start"),
url(r'ajax-upload$', views.import_uploader, name="my_ajax_upload"),

Step 4. Set up your template.

This sample is included in the templates directory, but at the minimum, you need:

<!doctype html>
    <head>
		<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.1/jquery.min.js" ></script>
        <script src="{{ STATIC_URL }}ajaxuploader/js/fileuploader.js" ></script>
        <link href="{{ STATIC_URL }}ajaxuploader/css/fileuploader.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
        <script>
        	$(function(){
            var uploader = new qq.FileUploader({
                action: "{% url my_ajax_upload %}",
                element: $('#file-uploader')[0],
                multiple: true,
                onComplete: function(id, fileName, responseJSON) {
                    if(responseJSON.success) {
                        alert("success!");
                    } else {
                        alert("upload failed!");
                    }
                },
                onAllComplete: function(uploads) {
                    // uploads is an array of maps
                    // the maps look like this: {file: FileObject, response: JSONServerResponse}
                    alert("All complete!");
                },
                params: {
                    'csrf_token': '{{ csrf_token }}',
                    'csrf_name': 'csrfmiddlewaretoken',
                    'csrf_xname': 'X-CSRFToken',
                },
            });
	    	});
        </script>
    </head>
<body>
    <div id="file-uploader">       
        <noscript>          
            <p>Please enable JavaScript to use file uploader.</p>
        </noscript>         
    </div>
</body>
</html>

Backends

django-ajax-uploader can put the uploaded files into a number of places, and perform actions on the files uploaded. Currently, there are backends available for local storage (default), Amazon S3, MongoDB (GridFS), CouchDB, and a locally stored image thumbnail backend. Creating a custom backend is fairly straightforward, and pull requests are welcome.

Built-in Backends

django-ajax-uploader has the following backends:

local.LocalUploadBackend

Stores the file locally, by default to {MEDIA_ROOT}/uploads.

Requirements:

None

Settings:

UPLOAD_DIR : The directory to store the uploaded file in, within MEDIA_ROOT. Defaults to "uploads".
BUFFER_SIZE: The size of each chunk to write. Defaults to 10 MB. See the caveat at the bottom before changing it.

Context returned:

path: The full media path to the uploaded file.

mongodb.MongoDBUploadBackend

Stores the file in MongoDB via GridFS

Requirements

pymongo

Settings:

AJAXUPLOAD_MONGODB_HOST: Specify either a single host:port or a list of host:port. Defaults to "localhost:27017"
AJAXUPLOAD_MONGODB_PORT (for backwards compatibility): Specify the port of your MongoDB server. Defaults to 27017 if not specified.
AJAXUPLOAD_MONGODB_REPLICASET (optional): Specify the name of your replicaset as a string. Defaults to an empty string.

# Replicaset
AJAXUPLOAD_MONGODB_HOST = ["127.0.0.1:27017", "127.0.0.1:27018"]
AJAXUPLOAD_MONGODB_REPLICASET = "myset"

# Standard
AJASUPLOAD_MONGODB_HOST = "127.0.0.1:27017"

Arguments

db (required): Specify the database within MongoDB you wish to use
collection (optional): Specify the collection within the db you wish to use. This is optional and will default to fs if not specified

Context returned:

None

couch.CouchDBUploadBackend

Stores the file in a CouchDB backend

Requirements

couchdb

Settings:

AJAXUPLOAD_COUCHDB_HOST: Specify the host of your CouchDB server. Defaults to http://localhost:5984 if not specified.

Arguments

db (required): Specify the database within CouchDB you wish to use

Context returned:

None

s3.S3UploadBackend

Stores the file in Amazon's S3.

Requirements:

boto

Settings:

NUM_PARALLEL_PROCESSES : Uploads to Amazon are parallelized to increase speed. If you have more cores and a big pipe, increase this setting for better performance. Defaults to 4.
BUFFER_SIZE: The size of each chunk to write. Defaults to 10 MB.

Context returned:

None

thumbnail.ThumbnailUploadBackend

Stores a thumbnail of the locally, optionally discarding the upload. Subclasses LocalUploadBackend.

Requirements:

sorl-thumbnail

Settings:

DIMENSIONS : A string of the dimensions (WxH) to resize the uploaded image to. Defaults to "100x100"
KEEP_ORIGINAL: Whether to keep the originally uploaded file. Defaults to False.
BUFFER_SIZE: The size of each chunk to write. Defaults to 10 MB.

Context returned:

path: The full media path to the uploaded file.

default_storage.DefaultStorageUploadBackend

This backend uses Django's default storage backend (defined by the DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE setting) to save the uploaded files.

Requirements:

None

Settings:

UPLOAD_DIR : The directory to store the uploaded file in, within MEDIA_ROOT. Defaults to "uploads".
BUFFER_SIZE: The size of each chunk to write. Defaults to 10 MB. See the caveat at the bottom before changing it.

Context returned:

path: The full media path to the uploaded file.

Backend Usage

The default backend is local.LocalUploadBackend. To use another backend, specify it when instantiating AjaxFileUploader.

For instance, to use MongoDBUploadBackend:

views.py

from ajaxuploader.views import AjaxFileUploader
from ajaxuploader.backends.mongodb import MongoDBUploadBackend

...
import_uploader = AjaxFileUploader(backend=MongoDBUploadBackend, db='uploads')

To set custom parameters, simply pass them along with instantiation. For example, for larger thumbnails, preserving the originals: views.py

from ajaxuploader.backends.thumbnail import ThumbnailUploadBackend

...
import_uploader = AjaxFileUploader(backend=ThumbnailUploadBackend, DIMENSIONS="500x500", KEEP_ORIGINAL=True)

Custom Backends

To write a custom backend, simply inherit from backends.base.AbstractUploadBackend and implement the upload_chunk method. All possible methods to override are described below.

upload_chunk - takes a string, and writes it to the specified location.
setup: takes the original filename, does all pre-processing needed before uploading the file (for example, for the S3 backend, this method is used to establish a connection with the S3 server).
update_filename: takes the request object and the original name of the file being updated, can return a new filename which will be used to refer to the file being saved. If undefined, the uploaded filename is used. If not overriden by upload_complete, this value will be returned in the response.
upload_complete: receives the request object and the filename post update_filename and does any cleanup or manipulation after the upload is complete. (Examples: cropping the image, disconnecting from the server). If a dict is returned, it is used to update the response returned to the client.

Caveats

BUFFER_SIZE - some users have reported problems using smaller buffer sizes. I also saw random failed uploads with very small sizes like 32k. 10MB has been completely reliable for me, and in what I've read here and there, so do some testing if you want to try a different value. Note that this doesn't have a big impact on the overall upload speed.

Credits

Original implementation and ongoing maintenance by skoczen, courtesy of GoodCloud.
Most of the backend abstraction was written by chromano and shockflash.
MongoDB support and saner defaults by chrisjones-brack3t.
Threadsafe improvements and bugfixes by dwaiter.
CouchDB support by paepke.
Default Storage backend by fhahn.
File number limit in upload by qnub.
JSON parsing improvements by onyxfish.

This code began as such a trivial layer on top of valum's uploader, boto, and alex's ideas it's silly. However, I didn't find any implementations that just worked, so hopefully it's useful to someone else. I also drew from these sources:

http://www.topfstedt.de/weblog/?p=558
http://www.elastician.com/2010/12/s3-multipart-upload-in-boto.html
https://github.com/valums/file-uploader
https://github.com/alexkuhl/file-uploader

Many thanks to all for writing such helpful and readable code!

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README.md

README.md

Updates

Usage

Step 1. Install django-ajax-uploader.

Step 2. (Django 1.3 only)

Step 3. Include it in your app's views and urls.

Step 4. Set up your template.

Backends

Built-in Backends

local.LocalUploadBackend

mongodb.MongoDBUploadBackend

couch.CouchDBUploadBackend

s3.S3UploadBackend

thumbnail.ThumbnailUploadBackend

default_storage.DefaultStorageUploadBackend

Backend Usage

Custom Backends

Caveats

Credits

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

Updates

Usage

Step 1. Install django-ajax-uploader.

Step 2. (Django 1.3 only)

Step 3. Include it in your app's views and urls.

Step 4. Set up your template.

Backends

Built-in Backends

local.LocalUploadBackend

mongodb.MongoDBUploadBackend

couch.CouchDBUploadBackend

s3.S3UploadBackend

thumbnail.ThumbnailUploadBackend

default_storage.DefaultStorageUploadBackend

Backend Usage

Custom Backends

Caveats

Credits