Go download image
last modified April 11, 2024
In this article we show how to download an image file in Go.
To download an image, we use the net/http and req
packages.
The net/http package provides HTTP client and server
implementations and is used to create GET and POST requests. The
req is a third-party HTTP client with many convenience functions.
$ go version go version go1.22.2 linux/amd64
We use Go version 1.22.2.
Go download image example
In the next example, we use the net/http package to download an
image file.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"io"
"log"
"net/http"
"os"
)
func main() {
fname := "favicon.ico"
f, err := os.Create(fname)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
defer f.Close()
url := "http://webcode.me/favicon.ico"
res, err := http.Get(url)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
defer res.Body.Close()
_, err = io.Copy(f, res.Body)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Println("image downloaded")
}
We download a favicon.
f, err := os.Create(fname)
With os.Create, we create a file where we write the binary data.
url := "http://webcode.me/favicon.ico" res, err := http.Get(url)
To fetch the image, we generate a GET request with http.Get.
_, err = io.Copy(f, res.Body)
We copy the downloaded data into the file from the body of the response using
the io.Copy function.
The following is a slightly modified version of the example.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"log"
"net/http"
"os"
"path"
)
func main() {
url := "http://webcode.me/favicon.ico"
r, err := http.Get(url)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
defer r.Body.Close()
fname := path.Base(url)
f, err := os.Create(fname)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
defer f.Close()
_, err = f.ReadFrom(r.Body)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Println("image downloaded")
}
We use the ReadFrom function to write the downloaded data into the
newly created file.
Go download image with Req
The next example uses the Req package to download an image.
package main
import (
"log"
"github.com/imroc/req/v3"
)
func main() {
client := req.C()
url := "http://webcode.me/favicon.ico"
_, err := client.R().SetOutputFile("favicon.ico").Get(url)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
}
Using the Req package, our code becomes shorter.
Download image from a custom server
In the next example, we create a simple web server which sends an image as a stream of bytes and a client that downloads that image.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"io/ioutil"
"log"
"net/http"
)
func main() {
handler := http.HandlerFunc(handleRequest)
http.Handle("/image", handler)
fmt.Println("Server started at port 8080")
http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil)
}
func handleRequest(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
buf, err := ioutil.ReadFile("sid.png")
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "image/png")
w.Write(buf)
}
The example creates a simple web server that sends an image to the client. The image is located in the current working directory.
handler := http.HandlerFunc(handleRequest)
http.Handle("/image", handler)
We map a handler to the /image path.
func handleRequest(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
...
The handler function accepts two parameters: http.ResponseWriter
and http.Request.
buf, err := ioutil.ReadFile("sid.png")
We read the image into the buffer.
w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "image/png")
We set the header. The Content-Type content type is used for PNG
image.
w.Write(buf)
The image data is written to the response body with Write.
The following is the http client.
package main
import (
"log"
"github.com/imroc/req/v3"
)
func main() {
client := req.C()
url := "http://localhost:8080/image"
_, err := client.R().SetOutputFile("sid.png").Get(url)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
}
We use the Req package to get the image from the custom server.
Source
Go net/http package - reference
In this article we have showed how to download image files in Go.
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