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Binary Objects and Blob Sync

Synchronizing images or binary objects between RhoConnect and the client is declared by having a ‘blob attribute’ on the Rhom model. This instructs the client to download the blob attribute’s value (in this case a url) separately from the rest of the data and save it to the device file system.

The example below shows how to synchronize an image created by the device’s camera, but could be applied to any arbitrary files on the device.

Synchronizing from Device to RhoConnect

Suppose you have a Rhom model called “Image” and you have a camera callback function defined in the Image model’s controller:

def camera_callback
  if @params['status'] == 'ok'
    #create image record in the DB
    image = Image.new({'image_uri'=>@params['image_uri']})
    image.save
    SyncEngine.dosync
  end  
  #reply on the callback
  render :action => :ok, :layout => false
end

When this is executed in a Rhodes application:

  • This callback triggers a sync after saving saving an image.

  • Then Rhodes will push the image file to the RhoConnect application by HTTP POST.

  • application.rb#store_blob is called for optional pre-processing of the file. This is useful in cases where you want to preserve the filename that Rhodes sent.

The following example stores the :filename argument as another object attribute.

def store_blob(obj,field_name,blob)
  obj['filename'] = blob[:filename]
  super
end
  • The RhoConnect source adapter tied to this Rhom model processes the blob in the create method.

The following example takes the blob and stores it in S3:

def create(create_hash)
  # this would be a blob attribute, points to a tempfile 
  # containing the raw post data
  name = create_hash["image_uri"] 

  # filename we saved in application.rb#store_blob method
  basename = create_hash["filename"]
  S3Object.store(
    basename,
    open(name),
    @bucket,
    :access => :public_read
  )
  basename #=> object id here is the filename
end

In this example, we store the image blob to s3 so we can query it later. See the “image” source adapter that comes with the rhodes-samples-server.

Query for Blobs in the Source Adapter

In your query call, you should store the URL to images in the blob attribute so that the device can fetch the image when it synchronizes.

def query(params=nil)
  @result={}
  Bucket.find(@bucket).objects.each do |entry|
    new_item = {
      'image_uri-rhoblob' => @baseurl+@bucket+'/'+File.basename(entry.key)
    }
    @result[entry.key] = new_item
  end
  @result
end

Here we save the image URL to an attribute image_uri-rhoblob. This will correspond to the image_uri attribute in our Rhom model above.

In order for Rhodes to automatically recognize a blob attribute, the attribute name must end with “-rhoblob”. In the above example, image_uri was our Rhom attribute, so our source adapter assigned image_uri-rhoblob with the blob URL.

Blob file name and extension on client

File name is generated on client when downloading. File extension is determine by:

  • To specify blob file extension add extension parameter to the blob URL. For example: ‘&extension=jpg’
  • If no extension parameter the blob URL then extension is extracted from blob URL itself(looking for ‘.’ from the end of the URL)
  • If still no file extension found, then ‘.bin’ is used

A complete image source adapter that stores files in S3 might look like:

require 'aws/s3'
class Image < SourceAdapter
  include AWS::S3


  def initialize(source,credential)
    AWS::S3::Base.establish_connection!(
      :access_key_id      => ENV['AMAZON_ACCESS_KEY_ID'],
      :secret_access_key  => ENV['AMAZON_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY']
    )
    @baseurl = 'https://s3.amazonaws.com/docs.tau-technologies.com/images/'
    @bucket = 'rhodes-samples-images'
    super(source,credential)
  end

  def query(params=nil)
    @result={}
    Bucket.find(@bucket).objects.each do |entry|
      new_item = {
        'image_uri-rhoblob' => @baseurl+@bucket+'/'+File.basename(entry.key)
      }
      @result[entry.key] = new_item
    end
    @result
  end

  def create(create_hash)
    puts "Creating: #{create_hash.inspect}"
    name = create_hash["image_uri"]
    basename = create_hash["filename"]
    S3Object.store(
      basename,
      open(name),
      @bucket,
      :access => :public_read
    )
    basename
  end

  def delete(delete_hash)
    puts "Removing: #{delete_hash.inspect}"
    S3Object.delete delete_hash['id'], @bucket
  end
end

Rhodes Sample Code

See controller and view in the app/Blob directory of the System API Samples application for a complete Rhodes code sample.

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