File upload progress in a Node app using Socket.io

If you look at the webapp generator, you’ll see that there is an option to upload a zip file containing event data. We wanted to give visual cue to the user when he is uploading to see how much file has uploaded.

We are uploading the file, and giving the generate start command via socket.io events instead of POST requests here.

To observe file upload progress on socket (when sending file using a Buffer), there is an awesome node module available called socketio-upload-progress.

In our webapp you can see we implemented it on the frontend here in the form.js and here in the backend in app.js

Basically on the backend you should add the socketio-file-upload module as a middleware to express

var siofu = require("socketio-file-upload");
var app = express()
    .use(siofu.router)
    .listen(8000);

After a socket is opened, set up the upload directory and start listening for uploads

io.on("connection", function(socket){
    var uploader = new siofu();
    uploader.dir = "/path/to/save/uploads";
    uploader.listen(socket);
});

On the frontend, we’ll listen for an input change on an file input type element whose id is siofu_upload

var socket = io.connect();
var uploader = new SocketIOFileUpload(socket);
uploader.listenOnInput(document.getElementById("siofu_input"));

One thing to note here is that, if you observe percentage of upload on frontend, it’ll give you false values. The correct values of how much data is actually transferred can be found in the backend. So observe progress in backend, and send percentage to frontend using the same socket.

  uploader.on('progress', function(event) {
    console.log(event.file.bytesLoaded / event.file.size)
    socket.emit('upload.progress', {
      percentage:(event.file.bytesLoaded / event.file.size) * 100
    })
});

 

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