URI resolution from different sources on Android when opening an image

Question

My Android application opens images and does manipulations with them. My activity requests the image to open as follows:

Intent intent = new Intent(); intent.setType("image/*"); intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT); startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent, "Complete action using"), PICK_FROM_FILE); 

At the same time, it launches a dialog with three or four parameters, such as ES File Explorer: files, gallery, etc.

I want to read this as a bitmap using BitmapFactory.decodeFile(path) .

When I select a file from ES File Explorer, the path is calculated as follows:

 String path = imageData.getData().getPath(); 

However, this does not work to select an image from the gallery or files, where, for example, the path value is /external/images/media/38 .

So, I set a check to convert a path that starts with external use:

 if (path.startsWith("/external")) { path = getFilePathFromUri(imageData.getData()); } private String getFilePathFromUri(Uri uri) { Cursor cursor = managedQuery(uri, new String[] { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA }, null, null, null); int column_index = cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA); cursor.moveToFirst(); return cursor.getString(column_index); } 

This will convert the above path to /mnt/sdcard/dcim/Camera/2011-11-13_15-33-24_304.jpg , and now it works for BitmapFactory.decodeFile(path) .

I understand that hard coding such a check (/ external) is not a good idea, is there a better, possibly general way to resolve the URI format returned in Intent?

Answer 1

I understand that hard coding such a check (/ external) is not a good idea, is there a better, possibly general way to resolve the URI format returned in the intent?

imageData.getData() returns a Uri . If its path starts with file:// (this is what most file managers will return), then uri represents the file. Another option is uri represents a content element (this is what the Gallery will return), in this case its path starts with content:// , and you should call ContentProvider for the actual path of the image file (as in your example). So I think you could go with something like this:

 Uri uri = imageData.getData(); String scheme = uri.getScheme(); if ("file".equals(scheme)) { // process as a uri that points to a file } else if ("content".equals(scheme)) { // process as a uri that points to a content item } 

Answer 2

You can ask MediaStore to create a bitmap from Uri:

 Bitmap bmp = MediaStore.Images.Media.getBitmap( getContext().getContentResolver(), uri );