Referencing a file inside the .war file from a JSP

Referencing a file inside the .war file from a JSP

Can I reference a file - say a .pdf file - that exists inside my .war file from a JSP? How would I do that? What is the relative path I would use?

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You certainly can. The code snippet below will retrieve the size of a file named "myreport.pdf" from a directory named "resources" that resides directly under the "classes" directory under the WEB-INF directory of a typical Web application. The stipulation implied here is that the file must exist in a directory which is relative to the classpath. The WEB-INF\classes directory is always in the classpath. In order to reference another directory in the classpath, use the Class-Path: header field for the .war file. This is documented nicely at: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/jar/basics/manifest.html 
<%@ page import="java.io.InputStream"%>
<p>
<%
  try
  {
    InputStream inStream =
       getClass().getResourceAsStream("/resources/myreport.pdf");
    out.println("<p>File size == " + inStream.available());
    inStream.close();
  }
  catch (Exception e)
  {
    out.println(e);
  }
%>

This was first published in June 2003

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