Java servlet send image

last modified August 24, 2023

In Java servlet send image tutorial, we create a classic web application in Java using a servlet. The servlet sends an image to the client. The web application is deployed on Jetty server.

Java servlet

Servlet is a Java class which responds to a particular type of network request - most commonly an HTTP request. Servlets are used to implement web applications. They run in a servlet container such as Tomcat or Jetty. In modern-day Java web development programmers use frameworks that are built on top of servlets.

Eclipse Jetty is a Java HTTP server and Java Servlet container. Jetty can be easily embedded in devices, tools, frameworks, application servers, and clusters.

Java servlet image example

The following web application sends an image to the client. The web application uses a Java servlet.

pom.xml
src
├── main
│   ├── java
│   │   └── com
│   │       └── zetcode
│   │               └── SendImage.java
│   ├── resources
│   └── webapp
│       ├── images
│       │   └── sid.jpg
│       └── index.html
└── test
    └── java

This is the project structure.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 
         http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>com.zetcode</groupId>
    <artifactId>HttpServletMappingEx</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <properties>
        <maven.compiler.source>17</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>17</maven.compiler.target>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>jakarta.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jakarta.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>6.0.0</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.2.3</version>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
                <artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>11.0.11</version>
                <configuration>
                    <webApp>
                        <contextPath>/app</contextPath>
                    </webApp>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>

        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

This is the pom.xml file.

package com.zetcode.web;

import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;


@WebServlet(name = "SendImage", urlPatterns = {"/image"})
public class SendImage extends HttpServlet {

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

        ServletContext sc = getServletContext();

        try (InputStream is = sc.getResourceAsStream("/images/sid.jpg")) {

            // it is the responsibility of the container to close output stream
            OutputStream os = response.getOutputStream();

            if (is == null) {

                response.setContentType("text/plain");
                os.write("Failed to send image".getBytes());
            } else {

                response.setContentType("image/jpeg");

                byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
                int bytesRead;

                while ((bytesRead = is.read(buffer)) != -1) {

                    os.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

The SendImage servlet returns an image file to the client.

@WebServlet(name = "SendImage", urlPatterns = {"/image"})

The @WebServlet annotation maps the request with image URL pattern to the SendImage servlet.

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

The request is a GET request, so we serve it in the doGet method.

ServletContext sc = getServletContext();

We get the ServletContext, which contains a set of methods that a servlet uses to communicate with its servlet container, for example, to get the MIME type of a file, dispatch requests, or write to a log file.

try (InputStream is = sc.getResourceAsStream("/images/sid.jpg")) {

We get the image resource stream with getResourceAsStream.

OutputStream os = response.getOutputStream();

We get the servlet output stream. We write image data to this stream. It is the responsibility of the container to close servlet output stream.

if (is == null) {

    response.setContentType("text/plain");
    os.write("Failed to send image".getBytes());
} else {

If we fail to open an image input stream, we send an error message back to the client.

response.setContentType("image/jpeg");

The image has JPEG format; therefore, we set the content type of the response to image/jpeg.

byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
int bytesRead;

while ((bytesRead = is.read(buffer)) != -1) {

    os.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
}

If we successfully opened the image input stream, we read the data and write it to the servlet output stream.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Servlet image</title>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    </head>
    <body>
        <a href="image">Get image</a>
    </body>
</html>

The index.html file is the home page of our application. It has a link that calls a servlet which servers an image file.

$ mvn jetty:run

We run the Jetty server and navigate to localhost:8080/app/.

In this article we have used a Java servlet to send an image to the client.

List Java Servlet tutorials.