Writing an HttpPost RestResource for multipart contentType

Question

I've been able to write a simple HttpPost RestResource that would accept a Base64 string as one of the parameters and make an attachment out of it.

But actually we want to use multipart instead of base64 strings. After some googling I found this blog which literally says:

REST API now supports the MIME multipart content-type standard which allows you to upload large binary files of up to 500Mb

But I also found some docs that say:

Apex REST currently doesn't support requests of Content-Type multipart/form-data.

Who should I believe? They are both on Salesforce site and both seem to be trustworthy. I've also found a lot of examples how to make an outbound multipart request, but didn't find any examples of inbound ones.

Is there a way(and an example) to write an apex HttpPost method that would accept multipart?

Answer 1

The Force.com REST API and Apex REST are not the same thing. The first is provided by the platform to interact with objects and the second is written by a developer in Apex to interact via a custom implementation.

So in short, the platform's REST API can accept a multipart binary but you cannot code your own Apex class exposed as a @RestResource and do the same thing.

From the SFDC Which API Should I Use? document:

REST API

• What is it for? Accessing objects in your organization using REST.
• When to use it? You want to leverage the REST architecture to integrate with your organization. No WSDL requirement. Well-suited for browser-based applications, mobile apps, and highly-interactive social applications.

APEX REST

• What is it for? Building your own REST API in Apex. Exposes Apex classes as RESTful Web services.
• When to use it? You need to build custom JSON responses or you want to expose custom functionality that you implemented in Apex.