Name

lua-resty-upload - Streaming reader and parser for HTTP file uploading based on ngx_lua cosocket

Status

This library is considered production ready.

Description

This Lua library is a streaming file uploading API for the ngx_lua nginx module:

http://wiki.nginx.org/HttpLuaModule

The multipart/form-data MIME type is supported.

The API of this library just returns tokens one by one. The user just needs to call the read method repeatedly until a nil token type is returned. For each token returned from the read method, just check the first return value for the current token type. The token type can be header, body, and part end. Each multipart/form-data form field parsed consists of several header tokens holding each field header, several body tokens holding each body data chunk, and a part end flag indicating the field end.

This is how streaming reading works. Even for giga bytes of file data input, the memory used in the lua land can be small and constant, as long as the user does not accumulate the input data chunks herself.

This Lua library takes advantage of ngx_lua's cosocket API, which ensures 100% nonblocking behavior.

Note that at least ngx_lua 0.7.9 or OpenResty 1.2.4.14 is required.

Synopsis

        lua_package_path "/path/to/lua-resty-upload/lib/?.lua;;";
    
        server {
            location /test {
                content_by_lua '
                    local upload = require "resty.upload"
                    local cjson = require "cjson"
    
                    local chunk_size = 5 -- should be set to 4096 or 8192
                                         -- for real-world settings
    
                    local form, err = upload:new(chunk_size)
                    if not form then
                        ngx.log(ngx.ERR, "failed to new upload: ", err)
                        ngx.exit(500)
                    end
    
                    form:set_timeout(1000) -- 1 sec
    
                    while true do
                        local typ, res, err = form:read()
                        if not typ then
                            ngx.say("failed to read: ", err)
                            return
                        end
    
                        ngx.say("read: ", cjson.encode({typ, res}))
    
                        if typ == "eof" then
                            break
                        end
                    end
    
                    local typ, res, err = form:read()
                    ngx.say("read: ", cjson.encode({typ, res}))
                ';
            }
        }

A typical output of the /test location defined above is:

    read: ["header",["Content-Disposition","form-data; name=\"file1\"; filename=\"a.txt\"","Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"file1\"; filename=\"a.txt\""]]
    read: ["header",["Content-Type","text\/plain","Content-Type: text\/plain"]]
    read: ["body","Hello"]
    read: ["body",", wor"]
    read: ["body","ld"]
    read: ["part_end"]
    read: ["header",["Content-Disposition","form-data; name=\"test\"","Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"test\""]]
    read: ["body","value"]
    read: ["body","\r\n"]
    read: ["part_end"]
    read: ["eof"]
    read: ["eof"]

You can use the lua-resty-string library to compute SHA-1 and MD5 digest of the file data incrementally. Here is such an example:

        local resty_sha1 = require "resty.sha1"
        local upload = require "resty.upload"
    
        local chunk_size = 4096
        local form = upload:new(chunk_size)
        local sha1 = resty_sha1:new()
        local file
        while true do
            local typ, res, err = form:read()
    
            if not typ then
                 ngx.say("failed to read: ", err)
                 return
            end
    
            if typ == "header" then
                local file_name = my_get_file_name(res)
                if file_name then
                    file = io.open(file_name, "w+")
                    if not file then
                        ngx.say("failed to open file ", file_name)
                        return
                    end
                end
    
             elseif typ == "body" then
                if file then
                    file:write(res)
                    sha1:update(res)
                end
    
            elseif typ == "part_end" then
                file:close()
                file = nil
                local sha1_sum = sha1:final()
                sha1:reset()
                my_save_sha1_sum(sha1_sum)
    
            elseif typ == "eof" then
                break
    
            else
                -- do nothing
            end
        end

If you want to compute MD5 sums for the uploaded files, just use the resty.md5 module shipped by the lua-resty-string library. It has a similar API as resty.sha1.

For big file uploading, it is important not to buffer all the data in memory. That is, you should never accumulate data chunks either in a huge Lua string or in a huge Lua table. You must write the data chunk into files as soon as possible and throw away the data chunk immediately (to let the Lua GC free it up).

Instead of writing the data chunk into files (as shown in the example above), you can also write the data chunks to upstream cosocket connections if you do not want to save the data on local file systems.

Author

Yichun "agentzh" Zhang (章亦春) <agentzh@gmail.com>, OpenResty Inc.

Copyright and License

This module is licensed under the BSD license.

Copyright (C) 2012-2017, by Yichun "agentzh" Zhang (章亦春) <agentzh@gmail.com>, OpenResty Inc.

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

See Also

• the ngx_lua module

• the lua-resty-string library

• the lua-resty-memcached library

• the lua-resty-redis library

• the lua-resty-mysql library