retrieve images from server location

[beanboy]

hi,

i managed to upload files from client to server hard disk using apache commons.

how could iretrieve files to client from server again?
plz gimme an idea of implementation

thx
beanboy.

[~s.o.s~]

The simplest way would be to configure a path[a directory] in your web.xml and use the same path to upload/download images based on the image name specified.

In your web.xml:

<web-app ...>
  <context-param>
    <param-name>RESOURCE-PATH</param-name>
    <param-value>d:/My-Uploads</param-value>
  </context-param>
</web-app>

In your Servlet when saving:

// TODO: Move the image writing code to a separate utility
// class to maintain a sane level of abstraction
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws IOException, ServletException {
  String path = getServletContext().getInitParameter("RESOURCE-PATH");
  OutputStream out = //retrieve the file stream
  String imageName = request.getParameter("image-name");
  File dir = new File(path);
  File file = new File(dir, imageName);
  // write from the servlet request stream to this file
}

In your Servlet when retrieving:

// TODO: Move the image reading code to a separate utility
// class to maintain a sane level of abstraction
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws IOException, ServletException {
  String path = getServletContext().getInitParameter("RESOURCE-PATH");
  String imageName = request.getParameter("image-name");
  File dir = new File(path);
  File file = new File(dir, imageName);
  // Check file existence; throw appropriate error if not present
  // Write the contents of the file to the servlet response stream
}

- Of course there might be problems implementing this approach, but this is as simple as it gets.

- You can also store your images in a database as BLOB to get all the benefits offered by an RDBMS if required.

- You can also store the images relative to your web application root instead of just any random location on your HDD and let the web server do all the heavy lifting by making it serve static content by doing a simple `forward()' in your servlet based on the image name specified.

[imdeadsoul]

I believe that it is not a good practice to store images in a file system. It is better to store them in the database. After that you can retrieve it by the means of a servlet which will use request params. Here is a tutorial:

Displaying images from database with servlet