Problem uploading Excel file into Data Table

Anvil Q&A
1

I’m trying to upload an Excel file from my Apple iClould folder into a Data Table, all from within a Server Module. My problem is that the BlobMedia object I’m creating (and then uploading via app_table.add_row()) is using the 2nd parameter, the file path (which I can access in Terminal), as the content of the file as a string instead of the actual Excel file. Also, if I use the Name= keyword (instead of omitting it), I get an “unexpected keyword” error. Here’s my BlobMedia constructor:

f = anvil.BlobMedia(‘application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet’, ‘~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Data Call Manager/Test.xlsx’, Name=‘Test.xlsx’)

I’ve also found that after the above line of code, f.length = the length of the string, not the Excel file (which is 175K).

I searched the docs and forum, found numerous examples of working with BlobMedia, but I can’t seem to get this figured out. Help!

P.S. I tried changing the single backslash in the 2nd parameter to a double due to Python’s escaping, but it makes no difference.

2

At first glance I see something wrong: the upper case N in Name.

Have you tried with name?

3

Stefano, thanks, that fixed THAT problem :slight_smile:

4

This is definitely a documentation bug, which I will fix! To clarify:

The second parameter in the constructor is the contents of the file. You need to supply the bytes of the file as that argument (in Python 2, a string is an array of bytes):

file_contents = return_an_xls_as_a_string()
f = anvil.BlobMedia(
  'application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet', 
  file_contents,
  name='this_can_be_anything.xlsx'
)

So you need to get your Server Module to retrieve the file contents as a string of bytes. Does iCloud have an API you can use for that? (If so, anvil.http.request will construct a Media object for you automatically.)

Uploading files from your machine

Of course, to upload files from your machine, you can add a FileLoader component to a Form. Its file property is automatically a Media object with the correct name, contents and content type. To get it into a Server Module, pass it as an argument to a server function using anvil.server.call.

5

Shaun, FYI: I already successfully use the FileLoader in my app. I’m automating the creation of customer demo data, and I need to be able to automate the upload of some sample Excel files. Thanks for the help - I’m researching the iCloud API, although I could technically upload the Excel files from anywhere on my Mac.

6

Shaun, being that there’s no particular reason I need to be using iCloud to store my Excel files, I’m just going to use Anvil’s Google Drive service and load my files from there. KISS principle in action :slight_smile:

1 Like
7

Nice! Let me know how it goes :slight_smile:

(Also, remember that you can store Media objects in Data Table columns, if that suits your use-case.)

8

Yeah, that’s the whole goal here. My users can upload a limited amount of files in my app - they’re stored in a Data Table and I use the FileUploader. But as mentioned earlier, I need to pre-populate on-demand a sample data set for new clients and demos, and that includes uploading some sample Excel files. I’m just trying to make it a one-push-button affair on my end regarding the sample data.

1 Like