(Quick Reference) # 8.1.9 Uploading Files Version: 3.2.8 ## 8.1.9 Uploading Files #### Programmatic File Uploads Grails supports file uploads using Spring’s MultipartHttpServletRequest interface. The first step for file uploading is to create a multipart form like this:
    Upload Form: <br />
        <g:uploadForm action="upload">
            <input type="file" name="myFile" />
            <input type="submit" />
        </g:uploadForm>
The `uploadForm` tag conveniently adds the `enctype="multipart/form-data"` attribute to the standard `<g:form>` tag. There are then a number of ways to handle the file upload. One is to work with the Spring MultipartFile instance directly:
    def upload() {
        def f = request.getFile('myFile')
        if (f.empty) {
            flash.message = 'file cannot be empty'
            render(view: 'uploadForm')
            return
        }

        f.transferTo(new File('/some/local/dir/myfile.txt'))
        response.sendError(200, 'Done')
    }
This is convenient for doing transfers to other destinations and manipulating the file directly as you can obtain an `InputStream` and so on with the MultipartFile interface. #### File Uploads through Data Binding File uploads can also be performed using data binding. Consider this `Image` domain class:
    class Image {
        byte[] myFile

        static constraints = {
            // Limit upload file size to 2MB
            myFile maxSize: 1024 * 1024 * 2
        }
    }
If you create an image using the `params` object in the constructor as in the example below, Grails will automatically bind the file’s contents as a `byte[]` to the `myFile` property:
    def img = new Image(params)
It’s important that you set the size or maxSize constraints, otherwise your database may be created with a small column size that can’t handle reasonably sized files. For example, both H2 and MySQL default to a blob size of 255 bytes for `byte[]` properties. It is also possible to set the contents of the file as a string by changing the type of the `myFile` property on the image to a String type:
    class Image {
       String myFile
    }
#### Increase Upload Max File Size Grails default size for file uploads is 128000 (~128KB). When this limit is exceeded you’ll see the following exception:
    org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartException: Could not parse multipart servlet request; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: org.apache.tomcat.util.http.fileupload.FileUploadBase$SizeLimitExceededException
You can configure the limit in your `application.yml` as follows: grails-app/conf/application.yml
    grails:
        controllers:
            upload:
                maxFileSize: 2000000
                maxRequestSize: 2000000
`maxFileSize` = The maximum size allowed for uploaded files. `maxRequestSize` = The maximum size allowed for multipart/form-data requests. You should keep in mind OWASP recommendations - Unrestricted File Upload
| Limit the file size to a maximum value in order to prevent denial of service attacks.
These limits exist to prevent DoS attacks and to enforce overall application performance | Quick Reference (hide)