[FIXED] How can I retrieve an image from a folder using a JavaEE application running in Tomcat server?

Issue

I have the following doubt. I have a TomCat server instance and I need to expose some JPG images on Internet. In the past I always accomplished this type of task installing an Apache server and then putting my images into an htdocs subfolder. With Tomcat server it seems to be more complicated.

I found this post here on SO: How to config Tomcat to serve images from an external folder outside webapps?

But I am not sure about what I have to do so I want to ask you some question to clarify my doubts.

From what I know a JavaEE application is something like that, deployed, added functionality to the application server\servlet container (differently from Apache where a PHP application is only something that is runned).

So, reasoning on the example of the posted link it seems to me that:

• I have to create a brand new JavaEE application that will be deployed into my Tomcat server.

• This application will contain no classes because there is no logic that have to be implemented.

• This application have only to contain the web.xml configuration file that will configure a single servlet that map to the directory where my images are contained, this one:

  images com.example.images.ImageServlet images /images/*

My doubt is: is the previous example incomplete? Have I to write the ImageServlet class to do this work? What can I do?

Solution

HttpServlet will works perfect for your needs. You can define more servlets if needed.

use:

youraddress.xxx/images/filename.png

this is important @WebServlet("/images/*")

It will automatically leads to folder defined in PATH and retrieve the image based on the name.

import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;

@WebServlet("/images/*")
public class ImageServlet extends HttpServlet {

public static final String PATH = "C:/"
/*
linux
public static final String PATH = "/home/images/"
*/

protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
        String filename = request.getPathInfo().substring(1);
        File file = new File(PATH,filename);
        response.setHeader("Content-Type", getServletContext().getMimeType(filename));
        response.setHeader("Content-Length",String.valueOf(file.length()));
        response.setHeader("Content-Disposition","inline; filename=\""+filename +"\"");
        Files.copy(file.toPath(),response.getOutputStream());
    }

}

Answered By - Milkmaid