I am working on a Spring Boot application for a real estate listing. I have implemented functionality to upload images when adding or editing listings. The image upload works when adding a new listing, but it doesn’t work when editing an existing listing.

When editing a listing, the application logs “No new image provided or image is empty,” even though I am providing a new image.

package com.marvi.realestatelisting.Controller;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.http.ResponseEntity;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

import com.marvi.realestatelisting.DTO.ListingDTO;
import com.marvi.realestatelisting.DTO.ImageDTO;
import com.marvi.realestatelisting.Entity.Image;
import com.marvi.realestatelisting.Entity.Listing;
import com.marvi.realestatelisting.Service.ListingService;

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/listing")
public class ListingController {

    @Autowired
    private ListingService service;

    private static final String UPLOAD_DIR = "/Users/macUser/uploads/";
    private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ListingController.class);

    @PostMapping("/add")
    public ListingDTO addListing(
            @RequestParam("title") String title,
            @RequestParam("address") String address,
            @RequestParam("price") double price,
            @RequestParam("bedrooms") int bedrooms,
            @RequestParam("bathroom") int bathroom,
            @RequestParam("year") String year,
            @RequestParam("image") MultipartFile image) throws IOException {

        Listing listing = new Listing();
        listing.setTitle(title);
        listing.setAddress(address);
        listing.setPrice(price);
        listing.setBedrooms(bedrooms);
        listing.setBathroom(bathroom);
        listing.setYearBuilt(year);
        listing.setSold(false);

        if (image != null && !image.isEmpty()) {
            String imagePath = saveImage(image);
            Image img = new Image();
            img.setFileName(image.getOriginalFilename());
            img.setFilePath(imagePath);
            img.setListing(listing);
            listing.setImages(List.of(img));
        }

        Listing savedListing = service.addListing(listing);
        return convertToDTO(savedListing);
    }

    @PutMapping("/edit/{id}")
    public ResponseEntity<ListingDTO> editListing(
            @PathVariable Long id,
            @RequestParam("title") String title,
            @RequestParam("address") String address,
            @RequestParam("price") double price,
            @RequestParam("bedrooms") int bedrooms,
            @RequestParam("bathroom") int bathroom,
            @RequestParam("year") String year,
            @RequestParam("sold") boolean sold,
            @RequestParam(value = "image", required = false) MultipartFile image) throws IOException {

        Listing listing = service.findListingById(id);
        if (listing == null) {
            return ResponseEntity.notFound().build();
        }

        listing.setTitle(title);
        listing.setAddress(address);
        listing.setPrice(price);
        listing.setBedrooms(bedrooms);
        listing.setBathroom(bathroom);
        listing.setYearBuilt(year);
        listing.setSold(sold);

        log.info("Received image: {}", image != null ? image.getOriginalFilename() : "No new image");

        if (image != null && !image.isEmpty()) {
            String imagePath = saveImage(image);
            Image img = new Image();
            img.setFileName(image.getOriginalFilename());
            img.setFilePath(imagePath);
            img.setListing(listing);

            if (listing.getImages() == null) {
                log.info("Images list is null, initializing new ArrayList");
                listing.setImages(new ArrayList<>());
            } else {
                log.info("Images list is not null, clearing existing images");
                listing.getImages().clear();
            }
            listing.getImages().add(img);
            log.info("Added new image to listing");
        }
        Listing updatedListing = service.editListings(id, listing);
        return ResponseEntity.ok(convertToDTO(updatedListing));
    }

    private String saveImage(MultipartFile image) throws IOException {
        Path uploadPath = Paths.get(UPLOAD_DIR);
        if (!Files.exists(uploadPath)) {
            Files.createDirectories(uploadPath);
        }

        byte[] bytes = image.getBytes();
        Path path = Paths.get(UPLOAD_DIR + image.getOriginalFilename());
        Files.write(path, bytes);
        log.info("saved image to {}", path.toString());
        return path.toString();
    }

    private ListingDTO convertToDTO(Listing listing) {
        ListingDTO listingDTO = new ListingDTO();
        listingDTO.setId(listing.getId());
        listingDTO.setTitle(listing.getTitle());
        listingDTO.setAddress(listing.getAddress());
        listingDTO.setPrice(listing.getPrice());
        listingDTO.setBedrooms(listing.getBedrooms());
        listingDTO.setBathroom(listing.getBathroom());
        listingDTO.setYearBuilt(listing.getYearBuilt());
        listingDTO.setSold(listing.isSold());

        List<ImageDTO> imageDTOs = new ArrayList<>();
        for (Image img : listing.getImages()) {
            ImageDTO imageDTO = new ImageDTO();
            imageDTO.setId(img.getId());
            imageDTO.setFileName(img.getFileName());
            imageDTO.setFilePath(img.getFilePath());
            imageDTO.setListingId(listing.getId());
            imageDTOs.add(imageDTO);
        }
        listingDTO.setImages(imageDTOs);

        return listingDTO;
    }
}

and also:

package com.marvi.realestatelisting.Entity;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonBackReference;
import jakarta.persistence.Entity;
import jakarta.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import jakarta.persistence.GenerationType;
import jakarta.persistence.Id;
import jakarta.persistence.JoinColumn;
import jakarta.persistence.ManyToOne;
import lombok.Data;

@Data
@Entity
public class Image {
    
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;

    private String fileName;
    private String filePath;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "listing_id")
    @JsonBackReference
    private Listing listing;

    public Image() {
    }

    public Image(Long id, String fileName, String filePath, Listing listing) {
        this.id = id;
        this.fileName = fileName;
        this.filePath = filePath;
        this.listing = listing;
    }
}

2024-07-31T22:40:07.218-04:00  WARN 59059 --- [realestatelisting] [nio-8080-exec-2] c.m.r.Controller.ListingController       : No new image provided or image is empty
Hibernate: select i1_0.listing_id,i1_0.id,i1_0.file_name,i1_0.file_path from image i1_0 where i1_0.listing_id=?
2024-07-31T22:40:07.242-04:00  INFO 59059 --- [realestatelisting] [nio-8080-exec-2] c.m.r.Controller.ListingController       : Listing with id 12 updated successfully

Expected Behavior

The image should be uploaded and associated with the listing when editing a listing.

Actual Behavior

The application logs “No new image provided or image is empty” even when an image is provided.