Upload files to Alfresco from Ruby using REST API

Alfresco populary known as content management system. It has workflow structure from document creation to publishing.

Here I will explain implmentation of document upload to Alfresco using REST API methods provided by Alfresco by implementing ruby net/http libray.

Alfresco's REST API upload method is http://youralfrescoserver:port/alfresco/service/api/upload

#we need to require two libray's
require 'net/http'
require 'uri'

#we need to have separator for multipart/form-data
BOUNDARY = "AaB03x"

#Here is the initialization for String which we are going to concatinate our form data
@form_params = String.new

def encode_form_data(parameters)  
  parameters.each do |key, value| 
    @form_params << "--" + BOUNDARY + "\r\n" 
    @form_params << "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"#{key}\"\r\n" + "\r\n" + "#{value}\r\n"  
  end 
  @form_params << "--" + BOUNDARY 
end 

def encode_file_data(parameters) 
  full_file_name = 'filename.docx' 
  file = File.open('filename.docx', "rb") {|f| f.read } 
  @form_params << ("\r\nContent-Disposition: form-data; name=\"filedata\"; filename=\"#{full_file_name}\"\r\n" + "Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary\r\n" + "Content-Type:" + "application/msword" + "\r\n\r\n" + file + "\r\n")
  @form_params << "--" + BOUNDARY + "--" 
end 

#Here we create net/http request object and add basic authentication details
uri = URI('http://alfserver01:8080/alfresco/service/api/upload')
req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(uri.path)
req.basic_auth 'alfrescousername', 'alfrescopasword'

#siteid, containerid and uploaddirectory are three parameter that tells Alfresco where it should save the document.
form_parameter = { 'siteid' => 'publicsite', 'containerid' => 'documentLibrary', 'uploaddirectory' => '/reports'}

#The below two methods constructs the form post to submit to Alfresco
encode_form_data(form_parameter)
encode_file_data

#Adding constructed form details and adding the headers
req.body= @form_params
req["Content-Length"] = req.body.length
req["Content-Type"] = "multipart/form-data, boundary=" + BOUNDARY

Form post is happening here and result will be json object

res = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port).start {|http| http.request(req) }
case res 
when Net::HTTPSuccess, Net::HTTPRedirection
  puts res.body 
else 
  puts res 
end