How display images in jsp which are outside the web container

This post not related to any Java framework but general web programming using simple jsp and servlet.

Yesterday my friend having a problem, he have different images path in database and he want to show these images which are actually outside the web container (not in image folder of project but on system location ex: /user/home/image).

Here is the code that how we can display images on jsp page.

Now suppose image Path in your database are like user/home/images/mypic.jpg or in windows D:/images/ mypic.jpg

step1: First create the Servlet in your project which containing the code like this one

import java.io.File;

import java.io.FileInputStream;

import java.io.IOException;

import java.io.OutputStream;

import javax.servlet.ServletException;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

/**

 * Servlet implementation class DisplayImage

 */

public class DisplayImage extends HttpServlet {

    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    /**

     * Default constructor.

     */

    public DisplayImage() {

        // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub

    }

    /**

     * @see HttpServlet#doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)

     */

    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {

this.doPost(request, response);

}

    /**

     * @see HttpServlet#doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)

     */

    protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {

        try{

            String imagePath=request.getParameter("img");

            response.setContentType("image/gif");

            File f = new File(imagePath);

            FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(f);

            byte[] buffer = new byte[fin.available()]; 

            fin.read(buffer);

            fin.close();

            OutputStream o = response.getOutputStream();

            o.write(buffer);

            o.flush();

            o.close();

            }

            catch(Exception e)

            {

            e.printStackTrace();

            }    

}

          }

  

Step2: Now when you read the jpg file path in other servlet or in you controller just forward the response on any jsp which showing all the images.

In your jsp if you want to show multiple images just create a loop on array or list and use this HTML img tag to show the images

<img alt="My img" src="<%=request.getContextPath()%>/DisplayImage?img=<%=yourPathFromDB%>"></img>

When this jsp is called directly or when control come to this it will call the DisplayImage servet which show the response simply because we set the response Content Type image/gif.

Enjoy..