Java servlet send image tutorial
last modified July 13, 2020
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
│ │ └── web
│ │ └── 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>JavaServletImage</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<properties>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
<maven.compiler.source>13</maven.compiler.source>
<maven.compiler.target>13</maven.compiler.target>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>4.0.1</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.3.0</version>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
<artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>9.4.30.v20200611</version>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>
The javax.servlet-api dependency is a library for building Java
servlets. The maven-war-plugin collects all artifact dependencies,
classes and resources of the web application and packages them into a
web application archive (WAR). The jetty-maven-plugin plugin
is useful for rapid development and testing with Jetty server.
<!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.
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 SendImageServlet servlet returns an image file to the client.
@WebServlet(name = "SendImageServlet", urlPatterns = {"/image"})
The @WebServlet annotation maps the request with image
URL pattern to the SendImageServlet 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.
$ mvn jetty:run
We run the Jetty server and navigate to localhost:8080.
In Java servlet send image tutorial, we have used a Java servlet to send an image to the client.
List Java Servlet tutorials.