Cross Platform Utility for saving images in SQLite.

On my way to developing a cross-platform application using Xamarin.Forms .It comes to a point when I need to fetch all the images of the products from the REST API and save it into my application database or SQLite. Also, I want the path of the image location to be returned back on successful saving so that I can save it into my product table and make use of it whenever I want to display image of the product.

I had gone through a lot of articles but won’t find an appropriate solution to achieve what I want. Finally, I have decided to develop my own utility which will help me to achieve this.And I would be glad to share my solution with you all.

My plan for the solution:
I extract an interface for the utility which will be in PCL and then create platform specific implementation of that. The interface contains two methods.

1. SaveFile() – that accept the file name and the file stream as byte[] and return file path.
2. DeleteDirectory() – that will delete existing folder ever a time when I sync the data from my API.

Now, lets take look on the code.

Common Interface:

	public interface IFileUtility
	{
	/// <summary>
	/// Use to save file in device specific folders
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="fileName"></param>
	/// <param name="fileStream"></param>
	/// <returns></returns>
	string SaveFile(string fileName,byte[] fileStream);
	/// <summary>
	/// Used to delete the existing file directory, before syncing the file again.
	/// </summary>
	void DeleteDirectory();
	}

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IFileUtility.cs

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Android Specific Code:

	public class FileUtility : IFileUtility
	{
	public string SaveFile(string fileName,byte[] imageStream)
	{
	string path = null;
	string imageFolderPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal), "ProductImages");
	//Check if the folder exist or not
	if (!System.IO.Directory.Exists(imageFolderPath))
	{
	System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(imageFolderPath);
	}
	string imagefilePath = System.IO.Path.Combine(imageFolderPath, fileName);
	//Try to write the file bytes to the specified location.
	try
	{
	System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(imagefilePath, imageStream);
	path = imagefilePath;
	}
	catch (System.Exception e)
	{
	throw e;
	}
	return path;
	}
	public void DeleteDirectory()
	{
	string imageFolderPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal), "ProductImages");
	if (System.IO.Directory.Exists(imageFolderPath))
	{
	System.IO.Directory.Delete(imageFolderPath,true);
	}
	}
	}

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FileUtility_Droid.cs

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iOS Specific Code:

	public class FileUtility : IFileUtility
	{
	public string SaveFile(string fileName,byte[] fileStream)
	{
	string path = null;
	string imageFolderPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal), "ProductImages");
	//Check if the folder exist or not
	if (!System.IO.Directory.Exists(imageFolderPath))
	{
	System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(imageFolderPath);
	}
	string imagefilePath = System.IO.Path.Combine(imageFolderPath, fileName);
	//Try to write the file bytes to the specified location.
	try
	{
	System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(imagefilePath, fileStream);
	path = imagefilePath;
	}
	catch (System.Exception e)
	{
	throw e;
	}
	return path;
	}
	public void DeleteDirectory()
	{
	string imageFolderPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal), "ProductImages");
	if (System.IO.Directory.Exists(imageFolderPath))
	{
	System.IO.Directory.Delete(imageFolderPath,true);
	}
	}
	}

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FileUtility_iOS.cs

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