Here is an Example of File Picker in React Native. For picking a file or a document we will use a library called react-native-document-picker. Which provides DocumentPicker component which is very helpful to pick any type of document from your mobile memory.
How to Use
react-native-document-picker library provides a DocumentPicker component in which you can set the file type you want to pick and accordingly it will provide you the option to choose the file.
Here is the code snippet of DocumentPicker we have used in this Example
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | DocumentPicker.show({ filetype: [DocumentPickerUtil.allFiles()], //All type of Files DocumentPickerUtil.allFiles() //Only PDF DocumentPickerUtil.pdf() //Audio DocumentPickerUtil.audio() //Plain Text DocumentPickerUtil.plainText() }, (error, res) => { console.log('res : ' + JSON.stringify(res)); console.log('URI : ' + res.uri); console.log('Type : ' + res.type); console.log('File Name : ' + res.fileName); console.log('File Size : ' + res.fileSize); } ); |
In this example below, we will open a File Picker on a click of a button and will show the selected File URI, File Type, File name and File Size on the Text component. So Let’s get started with the Example.
To Make a React Native App
Getting started with React Native will help you to know more about the way you can make a React Native project. We are going to use react-native init to make our React Native App. Assuming that you have node installed, you can use npm to install thereact-native-cli command line utility. Open the terminal and go to the workspace and runInstallation of Dependency
To use DocumentPicker we need to install react-native-document-picker package. To install this
Open the terminal and jump into your project
1 | cd ProjectName |
Run the following command
1 | npm install react-native-document-picker --save |
This command will copy all the dependencies into your node_module directory, You can find the directory in node_module the directory named react-native-document-picker.
Linking of Library
To use react-native-document-picker library we have to link some dependencies in Android and IOS project files. In order to link the library you have to run following command:
1 | react-native link |
You can see the following changes in your android project. If you are unable to find the changes then please do those changes as they are must for this example.
Go to the documentpickerExample> android > app > build.gradle.
Scroll down and you can see the following dependency and if not please add this.
1 | compile project(':react-native-document-picker') |
Open documentpickerExample> android > settings.gradle and you can see the following lines and if not please add this.
1 2 | include ':react-native-document-picker' project(':react-native-document-picker').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/react-native-document-picker/android') |
Open documentpickerExample> android > app > src > main > java > com > documentpickerexample> MainApplication.java and you can see the following lines in imports if not then please add
1 | import com.reactnativedocumentpicker.ReactNativeDocumentPicker; |
Scroll down and you can see the following line in getPackages after new MainReactPackage() if not then please add a comma(,) and add
1 | new ReactNativeDocumentPicker() |
For the Android, we have to ask some permission before we start with the code as we are going to access the external storage. You have to add the following permission to your AndroidMenifest.xml
1 | <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/> |
Here we have done with our installation of the library. If you are still facing the trouble please comment below so that we can help you out from the problem. Just to confirm the dependencies here is the screenshot of the dependencies that we are using
If you are on the same boat then let’s go further or please update your package.json and run npm install to install new dependencies.
You can download the source code from Github
OR
Open App.js in any code editor and the Replace the code with the following code
App.js
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 | /*This is an example of File Picker in React Native*/ import React from 'react'; import { StyleSheet, Text, View, Button, TouchableOpacity, Image, } from 'react-native'; import { DocumentPicker, DocumentPickerUtil, } from 'react-native-document-picker'; export default class App extends React.Component { constructor(props) { super(props); this.state = { fileUri: '', fileType: '', fileName: '', fileSize: '', }; } handleChange() { //Opening Document Picker DocumentPicker.show( { filetype: [DocumentPickerUtil.allFiles()], //All type of Files DocumentPickerUtil.allFiles() //Only PDF DocumentPickerUtil.pdf() //Audio DocumentPickerUtil.audio() //Plain Text DocumentPickerUtil.plainText() }, (error, res) => { this.setState({ fileUri: res.uri }); this.setState({ fileType: res.type }); this.setState({ fileName: res.fileName }); this.setState({ fileSize: res.fileSize }); console.log('res : ' + JSON.stringify(res)); console.log('URI : ' + res.uri); console.log('Type : ' + res.type); console.log('File Name : ' + res.fileName); console.log('File Size : ' + res.fileSize); } ); } render() { return ( <View style={styles.container}> <TouchableOpacity activeOpacity={0.5} style={{ alignItems: 'center' }} onPress={this.handleChange.bind(this)}> <Image source={{ uri: 'https://aboutreact.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/clips.png', }} style={styles.ImageIconStyle} /> <Text style={{ marginTop: 10 }}>Add Attachment</Text> </TouchableOpacity> <Text style={styles.text}> {this.state.fileUri ? 'URI\n' + this.state.fileUri : ''} </Text> <Text style={styles.text}> {this.state.fileType ? 'Type\n' + this.state.fileType : ''} </Text> <Text style={styles.text}> {this.state.fileName ? 'File Name\n' + this.state.fileName : ''} </Text> <Text style={styles.text}> {this.state.fileSize ? 'File Size\n' + this.state.fileSize : ''} </Text> </View> ); } } const styles = StyleSheet.create({ container: { flex: 1, backgroundColor: '#fff', alignItems: 'center', justifyContent: 'center', padding: 16, backgroundColor: 'white', }, text: { backgroundColor: '#fff', alignItems: 'center', justifyContent: 'center', fontSize: 15, textAlign: 'center', marginTop: 16, color: 'black', }, ImageIconStyle: { height: 80, width: 80, resizeMode: 'stretch', }, }); |
To Run the React Native App
Open the terminal again and jump into your project using.
This is how you can Pick a file from the React Native Application. If you have any doubt or you want to share something about the topic you can comment below or contact us here. There will be more posts coming soon. Stay tuned!
Hope you liked it. 🙂
How useful was this post?
Click on a star to rate us!
Average rating / 5. Vote count:
We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!
Let us improve this post!
Thanks for your feedback!
How to prevent the package from accessing icloud as I do not have Apple Developer Account and would just want to access from the local storage.
I have tried but you have to have an ICloud Account for that.