Servlet Upload File and Download File Example

Servlet Upload File and Download File is a common task in java web application. Since I have written a lot about java servlet recently, I thought to provide a sample example of servlet file upload to server and then download from server to client.

Table of Contents

1 Servlet Upload File
2 File Upload Download Servlet
- 2.1 Download Servlet File Upload Download Project

Servlet Upload File

Our use case is to provide a simple HTML page where client can select a local file to be uploaded to server. On submission of request to upload the file, our servlet program will upload the file into a directory in the server and then provide the URL through which user can download the file. For security reason, user will not be provided direct URL for downloading the file, rather they will be given a link to download the file and our servlet will process the request and send the file to user.

We will create a dynamic web project in Eclipse and the project structure will look like below image.

Let’s look into all the components of our web application and understand the implementation.

HTML Page for Java Uploading File to Server

We can upload a file to server by sending a post request to servlet and submitting the form. We can’t use GET method for uploading file.

Another point to note is that enctype of form should be multipart/form-data.

To select a file from user file system, we need to use input element with type as file.

So we can have a simple HTML page index.html for uploading file as:


<html>
<head></head>
<body>
<form action="UploadDownloadFileServlet" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
Select File to Upload:<input type="file" name="fileName">
<br>
<input type="submit" value="Upload">
</form>
</body>
</html>

Server File Location for File Upload

We need to store file into some directory at server, we can have this directory hardcoded in program but for better flexibility, we will keep it configurable in deployment descriptor context params. Also we will add our upload file html page to the welcome file list.

Our web.xml file will look like below:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="https://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xsi:schemaLocation="https://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee https://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd" version="3.0">
  <display-name>ServletFileUploadDownloadExample</display-name>
  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
  <context-param>
    <param-name>tempfile.dir</param-name>
    <param-value>tmpfiles</param-value>
  </context-param>
</web-app>

ServletContextListener for File Upload Location

Since we need to read context parameter for file location and create a File object from it, we can write a ServletContextListener to do it when context is initialized. We can set absolute directory location and File object as context attribute to be used by other servlets.

Our ServletContextListener implementation code is like below.


package com.journaldev.servlet;

import java.io.File;

import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import javax.servlet.ServletContextEvent;
import javax.servlet.ServletContextListener;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebListener;

@WebListener
public class FileLocationContextListener implements ServletContextListener {

    public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent servletContextEvent) {
    	String rootPath = System.getProperty("catalina.home");
    	ServletContext ctx = servletContextEvent.getServletContext();
    	String relativePath = ctx.getInitParameter("tempfile.dir");
    	File file = new File(rootPath + File.separator + relativePath);
    	if(!file.exists()) file.mkdirs();
    	System.out.println("File Directory created to be used for storing files");
    	ctx.setAttribute("FILES_DIR_FILE", file);
    	ctx.setAttribute("FILES_DIR", rootPath + File.separator + relativePath);
    }

	public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent servletContextEvent) {
		//do cleanup if needed
	}
	
}

File Upload Download Servlet

Update: Servlet Specs 3 added support to upload files on server in the API, so we won’t need to use any third party API. Please check out Servlet 3 Upload File.

For File upload, we will use Apache Commons FileUpload utility, for our project we are using version 1.3, FileUpload depends on Apache Commons IO jar, so we need to place both in the lib directory of the project, as you can see that in above image for project structure.

We will use DiskFileItemFactory factory that provides a method to parse the HttpServletRequest object and return list of FileItem. FileItem provides useful method to get the file name, field name in form, size and content type details of the file that needs to be uploaded. To write file to a directory, all we need to do it create a File object and pass it as argument to FileItem write() method.

Since the whole purpose of the servlet is to upload file, we will override init() method to initialise the DiskFileItemFactory object instance of the servlet. We will use this object in the doPost() method implementation to upload file to server directory.

Once the file gets uploaded successfully, we will send response to client with URL to download the file, since HTML links use GET method,we will append the parameter for file name in the URL and we can utilise the same servlet doGet() method to implement file download process.

For implementing download file servlet, first we will open the InputStream for the file and use ServletContext.getMimeType() method to get the MIME type of the file and set it as response content type.

We will also need to set the response content length as length of the file. To make sure that client understand that we are sending file in response, we need to set “Content-Disposition” header with value as “attachment; filename=”fileName”.

Once we are done with setting response configuration, we can read file content from InputStream and write it to ServletOutputStream and the flush the output to client.

Our final implementation of UploadDownloadFileServlet servlet looks like below.


package com.journaldev.servlet;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;

import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.ServletOutputStream;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileItem;
import org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileUploadException;
import org.apache.commons.fileupload.disk.DiskFileItemFactory;
import org.apache.commons.fileupload.servlet.ServletFileUpload;

@WebServlet("/UploadDownloadFileServlet")
public class UploadDownloadFileServlet extends HttpServlet {
	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private ServletFileUpload uploader = null;
	@Override
	public void init() throws ServletException{
		DiskFileItemFactory fileFactory = new DiskFileItemFactory();
		File filesDir = (File) getServletContext().getAttribute("FILES_DIR_FILE");
		fileFactory.setRepository(filesDir);
		this.uploader = new ServletFileUpload(fileFactory);
	}
	protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
		String fileName = request.getParameter("fileName");
		if(fileName == null || fileName.equals("")){
			throw new ServletException("File Name can't be null or empty");
		}
		File file = new File(request.getServletContext().getAttribute("FILES_DIR")+File.separator+fileName);
		if(!file.exists()){
			throw new ServletException("File doesn't exists on server.");
		}
		System.out.println("File location on server::"+file.getAbsolutePath());
		ServletContext ctx = getServletContext();
		InputStream fis = new FileInputStream(file);
		String mimeType = ctx.getMimeType(file.getAbsolutePath());
		response.setContentType(mimeType != null? mimeType:"application/octet-stream");
		response.setContentLength((int) file.length());
		response.setHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"");
		
		ServletOutputStream os = response.getOutputStream();
		byte[] bufferData = new byte[1024];
		int read=0;
		while((read = fis.read(bufferData))!= -1){
			os.write(bufferData, 0, read);
		}
		os.flush();
		os.close();
		fis.close();
		System.out.println("File downloaded at client successfully");
	}

	protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
		if(!ServletFileUpload.isMultipartContent(request)){
			throw new ServletException("Content type is not multipart/form-data");
		}
		
		response.setContentType("text/html");
		PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
		out.write("<html><head></head><body>");
		try {
			List<FileItem> fileItemsList = uploader.parseRequest(request);
			Iterator<FileItem> fileItemsIterator = fileItemsList.iterator();
			while(fileItemsIterator.hasNext()){
				FileItem fileItem = fileItemsIterator.next();
				System.out.println("FieldName="+fileItem.getFieldName());
				System.out.println("FileName="+fileItem.getName());
				System.out.println("ContentType="+fileItem.getContentType());
				System.out.println("Size in bytes="+fileItem.getSize());
				
				File file = new File(request.getServletContext().getAttribute("FILES_DIR")+File.separator+fileItem.getName());
				System.out.println("Absolute Path at server="+file.getAbsolutePath());
				fileItem.write(file);
				out.write("File "+fileItem.getName()+ " uploaded successfully.");
				out.write("<br>");
				out.write("<a href=\"UploadDownloadFileServlet?fileName="+fileItem.getName()+"\">Download "+fileItem.getName()+"</a>");
			}
		} catch (FileUploadException e) {
			out.write("Exception in uploading file.");
		} catch (Exception e) {
			out.write("Exception in uploading file.");
		}
		out.write("</body></html>");
	}

}

The sample execution of the project is shown in below images.

Download Servlet File Upload Download Project

You can download Apache Commons IO jar and Apache Commons FileUpload jar from below URLs.

https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-fileupload/download_fileupload.cgi
https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-io/download_io.cgi

Download Servlet File Upload Download Example Project

Check out next article in the series about Servlet Exception Handling.

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Pankaj

I love Open Source technologies and writing about my experience about them is my passion.

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Comments

Bmg says:
January 19, 2021 at 8:22 am
do you have this example to upload 2 files?
Reply
Alex says:
December 12, 2020 at 9:24 am
Hey thank you for this tutorial. everything is working 😉 . I don’t know if you still come around here to see comments, but do you know if there is a way to get the img in the server directory from an html page using php.
Reply
rahul says:
September 4, 2020 at 5:27 am
Hello Sir , Very Beatiful Example.
I want to upload documents for particular user.
ex:-1. John upload and views its documents
2. Marry upload and views its documents
Reply
Clarence Leslie says:
December 11, 2019 at 3:01 pm
This was a great tutorial. I had a few issues with the code at first, but was able to resolve. As a suggestion it would be helpful to everyone to understand that your code is probably coding in a linux based system verses windows. If coding in windows, there maybe an issue with the AbsolutePath causing an issue with saving the file to the tempfile directory on the apache server. If using apache as the web server. C:\\ will cause havoc with Linux paths code. Also, the code is meant to upload the file once, any subsequent uploads will result in an exception because the file already exist. So, can force remove the existing file or simply add a ! file.exist check to solve the issue.
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  December 11, 2019 at 10:11 pm
  Thanks for the inputs. Yes, the difference in Path in Windows and *nix based systems cause a lot of issues for beginners. But, once you have fair enough idea, it’s easy to get around it.
  Reply
HL says:
November 12, 2019 at 11:49 am
I am getting a ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileItemFactory
I downloaded the apache commons fileUpload jar from here: https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-fileupload/download_fileupload.cgi
Any thoughts on this?
Reply
1. HL says:
  November 12, 2019 at 6:47 pm
  Nevermind this, I resolved this issue with my Intellij artifact setup. The artifact must include the external libraries. Sorry for the trouble.
  Reply
Npac says:
April 5, 2019 at 12:19 am
Thank you so much. It helps me lots for my final year project.
Reply
Mohammed Akbar says:
February 19, 2019 at 9:36 am
After uploading a file, my servlet page UploadDownloadFileServlet doesn’t print anything as the file uploaded… it’s empty…….
Reply
dinesh says:
May 10, 2018 at 4:48 am
Thanks for this tutorial,but when i upload the file it shows Exception in uploading file..can u give any suggestions
Reply
Sergey_Zimovets says:
January 25, 2018 at 10:30 am
if you have the exception you should create a file and will be sure that it has utf-8 encoding
In my case i tryid to upload my old resume file, i had an exception. Then i opened this file in notepad++ and try to change encoding i failed. Then i create simple file with notepad++ and encoding utf-8 and everything workes properly/
Reply
Andrey says:
June 21, 2017 at 11:04 am
I had to change a few things to make this work.
The biggest problem was that fileItem.getName() is a full path to image, not its filename.
After I added/changed these lines it worked like a charm:
String fullPath = fileItem.getName(); String filename = fullPath.substring(fullPath.lastIndexOf(File.separator) + 1);;
File file = new File(request.getServletContext().getAttribute("FILES_DIR") + File.separator + filename);;
out.write("UploadDownloadFileServlet?fileName= + filename");
Reply
1. Pitot says:
  August 25, 2017 at 10:41 pm
  Thank you so much, Andrey
  Reply
anusha jupally says:
June 5, 2017 at 9:54 pm
every time i uploading Exception in uploading file.
Reply
1. dinesh says:
  May 10, 2018 at 4:49 am
  R u solve the error u faced , i am also got the same error
  thanks
  Reply
Keval Shukla says:
May 28, 2017 at 3:42 am
Please tell me how do i redirect to my targeted page with that file .
Reply
Rochelle says:
November 16, 2016 at 11:16 pm
Hi Pankaj,
I tried your code above, it works sometimes, sometimes meaning when I try downloading a 3.3MB zip file it works fine but when I try it on a 3.90 MB it doesn’t work but there are times that it does work. I don’t know if the problem lies on my code or on my server. What do you think?
Reply
Gautam says:
October 20, 2016 at 5:09 am
Hi Pankaj,
I tried your code and it store the file in tmp directory. But i need to store in server. How to save the file in url(server).
For example my url is www.gautam.com
Reply
sakthi says:
October 19, 2016 at 4:44 am
Hi pankaj,
Plz help me out i am new to java
Exception in uploading file.
Absolute Path at server=C:\Users\User pc\Downloads\apache-tomcat-7.0.34\tmpfiles\C:\Users\User pc\Pictures\Screenshots\Screenshot (5).png
Reply
Zarue LG says:
September 19, 2016 at 1:39 am
Nice article
Reply
Lee Stebbins says:
July 23, 2016 at 9:24 pm
Just awesome topic! I recently had to fill out a form and spent an enormous amount of time trying to find an appropriate Just look at the service “https://goo.gl/fy7uke”. Its pretty easy to use. I think you can get a free trial if you ask for it.
Reply
aashish says:
June 20, 2016 at 1:00 am
exception in uploading file is the message that keeps on appearing again and again.can’t find the right cause,please help me with this.
Reply
Abrar Khan says:
April 26, 2016 at 5:47 am
We also include in web.xml file this line
com.journaldev.servlet.FileLocationContextListener
</listener
otherwise how server will find which is your Listener Class
its really nice work Thanks Pankaj
Reply
1. Abrar Khan says:
  April 26, 2016 at 5:51 am
  I am writing here proper but i dont know why it is not coming what i am writing
  inside web.xml give also listener class entry
  “”
  “”
  com.journaldev.servlet.FileLocationContextListener
  “”
  “”
  Reply
2. Pankaj says:
  April 26, 2016 at 7:26 am
  Notice the WebListener annotation.
  Reply
john Arnedo says:
March 16, 2016 at 2:24 pm
Very nice post! thank for you input!
Reply
Pankaj says:
January 15, 2016 at 7:39 am
Hey Pankaj, I am getting the below exception. Could You Please Sort it out
java.io.FileNotFoundException: null\password.txt (The system cannot find the path specified)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.(FileOutputStream.java:206)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.(FileOutputStream.java:156)
at org.apache.commons.fileupload.disk.DiskFileItem.write(DiskFileItem.java:394)
at UploadDownloadFileServlet.doPost(UploadDownloadFileServlet.java:148)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:644)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:725)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:301)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
at org.netbeans.modules.web.monitor.server.MonitorFilter.doFilter(MonitorFilter.java:393)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:219)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:106)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:503)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:136)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:74)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:610)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:88)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:516)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1015)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:652)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11NioProtocol.java:222)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1575)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1533)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
15-Jan-2016 20:46:37.140 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-406] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.reload Reloading Context with name [/UploadDownload] has started
15-Jan-2016 20:46:38.650 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-406] org.apache.jasper.servlet.TldScanner.scanJars At least one JAR was scanned for TLDs yet contained no TLDs. Enable debug logging for this logger for a complete list of JARs that were scanned but no TLDs were found in them. Skipping unneeded JARs during scanning can improve startup time and JSP compilation time.
15-Jan-2016 20:46:38.664 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-406] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.reload Reloading Context with name [/UploadDownload] is completed
15-Jan-2016 20:48:19.393 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-404] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.reload Reloading Context with name [/UploadDownload] has started
15-Jan-2016 20:48:20.676 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-404] org.apache.jasper.servlet.TldScanner.scanJars At least one JAR was scanned for TLDs yet contained no TLDs. Enable debug logging for this logger for a complete list of JARs that were scanned but no TLDs were found in them. Skipping unneeded JARs during scanning can improve startup time and JSP compilation time.
15-Jan-2016 20:48:20.686 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-404] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.reload Reloading Context with name [/UploadDownload] is completed
15-Jan-2016 20:49:40.535 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-415] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.reload Reloading Context with name [/UploadDownload] has started
15-Jan-2016 20:49:41.903 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-415] org.apache.jasper.servlet.TldScanner.scanJars At least one JAR was scanned for TLDs yet contained no TLDs. Enable debug logging for this logger for a complete list of JARs that were scanned but no TLDs were found in them. Skipping unneeded JARs during scanning can improve startup time and JSP compilation time.
15-Jan-2016 20:49:41.912 INFO [http-nio-8084-exec-415] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.reload Reloading Context with name [/UploadDownload] is completed
java.io.FileNotFoundException: null\password.txt (The system cannot find the path specified)
FieldName=fileName
FileName=password.txt
ContentType=text/plain
Size in bytes=10
Absolute Path at server=C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache Tomcat 8.0.3\bin\null\password.txt
name=password.txt, StoreLocation=C:\Users\Pankaj\AppData\Roaming\NetBeans\8.0\apache-tomcat-8.0.3.0_base\temp\upload_6dd91dbf_ca99_424f_903f_c21b7763cd48_00000000.tmp, size=10 bytes, isFormField=false, FieldName=fileName
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.(FileOutputStream.java:206)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.(FileOutputStream.java:156)
at org.apache.commons.fileupload.disk.DiskFileItem.write(DiskFileItem.java:394)
at UploadDownloadFileServlet.doPost(UploadDownloadFileServlet.java:148)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:644)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:725)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:301)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
at org.netbeans.modules.web.monitor.server.MonitorFilter.doFilter(MonitorFilter.java:393)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:219)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:106)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:503)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:136)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:74)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:610)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:88)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:516)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1015)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:652)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11NioProtocol.java:222)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1575)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1533)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Reply
Suneel Kumar says:
December 3, 2015 at 9:12 am
Hi,
I am getting the following error after upload and submitting the file..
===================================================
type Status report
message /UploadDownloadFileServlet
description The requested resource is not available.
===================================================
can u pls help me?
Reply
Irshad says:
November 16, 2015 at 10:42 pm
Its working fine but want multiple file download then i need to do
Please help me
Reply
Irshad says:
November 16, 2015 at 5:04 am
Hi Pankaj,
I have uploaded the file successfully but when i click to download the got excep : HTTP Status 404
description The requested resource is not available.
Please help me
Reply
Swathi says:
August 19, 2015 at 11:21 pm
Hi Pankaj
I am getting below exception in tomcat console
rg.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/UploadFileServletApp]]
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:154)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:901)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:877)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:618)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptor(HostConfig.java:650)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployDescriptor.run(HostConfig.java:1582)
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:471)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:334)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:166)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:722)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/commons/fileupload/FileUploadException
I have commons-fileupload-1.2.2.jar in my lib
Can u please let me know how can i resolve this problem
Reply
Swathi says:
August 19, 2015 at 2:05 am
Hi
I am getting below error
SEVERE: Servlet.service() for servlet [jsp] in context with path [/UploadFileServletApp] threw exception [Unable to compile class for JSP] with root cause
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.el.ExpressionFactoryImpl
at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1714)
Can you please let me know how can i solve this problem
Reply
Arpit says:
August 13, 2015 at 4:52 am
Hi Pankaj,
Your code is working fine but I want to upload file with same name as well as same file type. Please help me in this matter. Thanks in advance.
For Ex. if I want to Arpit.pdf to server, I am getting some random name and “tmp” file type instead of pdf.
Regards,
Arpit
Reply
swati ghai says:
July 20, 2015 at 10:40 am
i have studied your program ..it is quite good but please tell me…what should i do?
my requirement is i need this project but instead of uploading all files it should upload only .txt files..nd if user tries to enter other than this it should throw error
Reply
swathi says:
April 10, 2015 at 10:34 pm
[INFO] Scanning for projects…
[INFO] Downloading: https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/codehaus/mojo/maven-metadata.xml
[INFO] Downloading: https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-metadata.xml
[INFO] Downloaded: https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-metadata.xml (13 KB at 2.7 KB/sec)
[INFO] Downloaded: https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/codehaus/mojo/maven-metadata.xml (20 KB at 4.0 KB/sec)
[INFO] ————————————————————————
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ————————————————————————
[INFO] Total time: 5.847 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2015-04-11T11:02:04+05:30
[INFO] Final Memory: 8M/179M
[INFO] ————————————————————————
[ERROR] No plugin found for prefix ‘appengine’ in the current project and in the plugin groups [org.apache.maven.plugins, org.codehaus.mojo] available from the repositories [local (C:\Users\rn016\.m2\repository), central (https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2)] -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/NoPluginFoundForPrefixException
I am using the eclispe luna 4.4 and maven
Reply
1. ahmad says:
  April 16, 2015 at 11:56 pm
  can u teach me..what should i write in com.model of upload file
  Reply
sliman says:
January 22, 2015 at 7:16 am
Thank You !
Reply
mohit says:
January 15, 2015 at 8:39 pm
File Directory created to be used for storing files
java.io.FileNotFoundException: D:\Mohit\New folder\D:\Mohit\data.laccdb (The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.(Unknown Source)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.commons.fileupload.disk.DiskFileItem.write(DiskFileItem.java:394)
at UploadDownloadFileServlet.doPost(UploadDownloadFileServlet.java:110)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:646)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:727)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:303)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:208)
at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:241)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:208)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:220)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:122)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:503)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:170)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:103)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:950)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:116)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:421)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1070)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:611)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:314)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
FieldName=fileName
FileName=D:\Mohit\data.laccdb
ContentType=text/plain
Size in bytes=256
Absolute Path at server=D:\Mohit\New folder\D:\Mohit\data.laccdb
Reply
1. van do says:
  January 25, 2018 at 3:16 am
  add libarary into Webapp Library
  Reply
kapil says:
January 8, 2015 at 2:46 am
Hi Pankaj ,
when i am uploading more than 1mb file ,I am geetting a emplty list on below line.
List fileItemsList = uploader.parseRequest(request);
but for less than 1mb file it is working fine.
plz help me.
Reply
gauri says:
November 16, 2014 at 10:53 pm
Hello Pankaj,
My aim is to upload an encrypted file to server. So what modification should i do in this basic code?
I need to select a file, do aes encryption at client side and then after encryption upload encrypted file to server. Again to retreive the file, do the decryption at client side.
Please help me.
Reply
surendar says:
November 14, 2014 at 5:38 am
File file = new File(request.getServletContext().getAttribute(“FILES_DIR_FILE”)+File.separator+fileName);
In this Line i get “The method getServletContext() is undefined for the type HttpServletRequest”
Reply
1. Ajit says:
  December 24, 2014 at 1:36 am
  You may simply call
  getServletContext().getAttribute(“FILES_DIR_FILE”)
  Reply
  1. SMITH says:
    April 24, 2015 at 12:12 am
    getServletContext().getAttribute(“FILES_DIR”) IS NOT WORKING
    Reply
2. Sandeep says:
  September 26, 2016 at 6:43 am
  Make Sure that you are using Tomcat version 7 or more than that.
  Reply
  1. Sandeep says:
    September 26, 2016 at 6:45 am
    And also check the Java version..Please make sure that you are using java 8
    Reply
satya says:
November 4, 2014 at 5:43 am
I am getting this exception, Please help me……..
Exception in uploading file.java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\apache-tomcat-7.0.14\tmpfiles (Access is denied)
Reply
Ritu says:
October 29, 2014 at 1:49 am
everytime i click on upload file. it shows “Exception in uploading file.”
what do i do pls help.
thanks
Reply
Ritu says:
October 28, 2014 at 5:54 pm
i am not able to download the zipfile of this project
Reply
Tutorial Java Untuk Pemula says:
September 4, 2014 at 11:07 pm
Good Tutorial, thanks
Reply
1. gabi says:
  October 7, 2014 at 11:26 pm
  In worder to get the correct file name i must use this
  FilenameUtils.getName(fileItem.getName()
  Reply
Sim says:
August 11, 2014 at 3:28 am
Thanks so much for the tutorial. However I noticed that these is not supported in IE. I mean the upload part. What could be wrong
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  August 11, 2014 at 4:29 am
  I haven’t tested it with IE, but I suspect this might be because of Content-Type header, please print request header details to figure out anything wrong with it?
  Reply
Snehal says:
August 8, 2014 at 4:44 am
I have one jsp page containing browse button and tag. When i browse a file i want to populate the with users name containing in the file. And i am sending file name through jQuery. But on servlet i’m getting file name as C:/fakepath/Users.xls. How can i get the original path? How can i populate my box with users list.
Reply
john says:
August 7, 2014 at 4:04 am
i tried the codes above and i got this :
javax.servlet.ServletException: File Name can’t be null or empty
journaldev.UploadDownloadFileServlet.doGet(UploadDownloadFileServlet.java:38)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:618)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:725)
org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
Reply
mahendra says:
July 25, 2014 at 1:31 am
Hi,
I am unable to upload my image. That is giving me Exception please help me to resolve my problem…
EXCEPTION : /usr/local/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.36/bin/null/uploadFile/images.jpg (No such file or directory)
Reply
Jadhav says:
July 21, 2014 at 11:08 am
Hello Pankaj,
I got such an exception while clicking on Upload button. Please help me.
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: An exception occurred processing JSP page /upload.jsp at line 39
36: byte[] bFile = new byte[(int) file1.length()];
37:
38: //convert file into array of bytes
39: fis = new FileInputStream(file1);
40: fout = new FileOutputStream(“E:\\Temp\\file1.txt”);
41: fout1 = new FileOutputStream(“E:\\Temp\\file2.txt”);
42: fout2 = new FileOutputStream(“E:\\Temp\\file3.txt”);
root cause
java.io.FileNotFoundException: E:\File\copy-right-form.doc (The system cannot find the path specified)
java.io.FileInputStream.open(Native Method)
java.io.FileInputStream.(FileInputStream.java:138)
org.apache.jsp.upload_jsp._jspService(upload_jsp.java:115)
org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:70)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:432)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:390)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:334)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722)
Reply
krishna kumar says:
July 14, 2014 at 4:06 am
Hello Pankaj,
I got such an exception while clicking on Upload button. Please help me.
org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileUploadBase$IOFileUploadException: Processing of multipart/form-data request failed. C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 7.0\null\upload_2b1a313c_147347faa4e__7ffe_00000000.tmp (The system cannot find the path specified)
at org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileUploadBase.parseRequest(FileUploadBase.java:367)
at org.apache.commons.fileupload.servlet.ServletFileUpload.parseRequest(ServletFileUpload.java:126)
I have pasted a part of exception only.
Thank You!
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  July 14, 2014 at 9:17 am
  Read the exception, it clearly says that system is not able to find the path. I think C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 7.0\null\ directory is not present.
  Quick Tip: Always avoid white space in directory names, it causes a lot of trouble, trust me.
  Reply
  1. krishna kumar says:
    July 14, 2014 at 11:41 pm
    I corrected that null, but still have same problem like this..
    org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileUploadBase$IOFileUploadException: Processing of multipart/form-data request failed. C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 7.0\tempfile\upload_2b1a313c_147347faa4e__7ffe_00000000.tmp (The system cannot find the path specified)
    Reply
2. Pastis says:
  July 16, 2014 at 3:03 am
  Hi,
  of course!
  for the tmp directory to be created by the context
  the ServletContextListener has to be declared in the web.xml file it’s not enough
  to just create the class implementation.
  you should add to the web.xml
  ….
  …. / / other stuff here
  ….
  com.journaldev.servlet.FileLocationContextListener // or the name of the package
  // and class you chose
  Reply
sam says:
July 1, 2014 at 3:54 am
mr.pankaj
thanks for your post.
here i get error in these lines … even after adding servlet api .jar file
//import javax.servlet.annotation.WebListener;
//@WebListener
in both java class
and also getting error in getservletcontext() function..
how to resolve it.
will it work only if v use tomact version 7…?
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  July 1, 2014 at 5:57 am
  These annotations are part of Servlet Spec 3.0, so you need to add corresponding jar file. Apache Tomcat 7 supports Servlet 3, thats why it works with it.
  Reply
Pooria says:
June 29, 2014 at 12:38 am
hello.
why you say
if(!ServletFileUpload.isMultipartContent(request)){
throw new ServletException(“Content type is not multipart/form-data”);
}
?
Reply
Vladimir says:
May 28, 2014 at 2:29 am
Hi, Pankaj!
Why you did not include FileLocationContextListener in web.xml like this?
com.journaldev.servlet.FileLocationContextListener
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  May 28, 2014 at 9:14 am
  Because I am using Servlet-3 annotation @WebListener for listener. So we dont need to add listener class in the web.xml configuration. If you are using XML based configuration, you should do it in the web.xml file and remove annotation.
  Reply
Arab says:
May 23, 2014 at 7:02 am
Thanks for sharing , but when I press the upload button the 404 erorr is shown,,please help and how to fix it .
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  May 23, 2014 at 9:16 am
  You must have been pointing to wrong Servlet URI, please check that.
  Reply
  1. Arab says:
    May 26, 2014 at 2:45 am
    As u said ,, Servlet URI was wrong, ann I have already also problem with import java.io and javax.servlets API.
    now every thing work perfectly,, curently I am trying to configure your code so that I can upload a project or package not only single file. It is possible right ?
    Thanks in advance 🙂
    Reply
Andrew Nguyen says:
May 20, 2014 at 5:07 pm
Hello, first off thank you for all these tutorials! really helpful
So I am having trouble figuring out a way to renaming the file name using this approach. There is no fileItem.setName() so is there another way we can rename the file before uploading it to the directory?
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  May 21, 2014 at 8:32 am
  File file = new File(request.getServletContext().getAttribute(“FILES_DIR”)+File.separator+fileItem.getName());
  You can change the name here.
  Reply
ronlad says:
May 18, 2014 at 2:22 pm
hi Pankaj, thank for your tutorial,
please i need help.
I would like change de directory of my file
i have this :
Absolute Path at server=C:\Users\Ronald\Desktop\eclipseAjour\eclipse\null\WWW.YIFY-TORRENTS.COM.jpg
File location on server::C:\Users\Ronald\Desktop\eclipseAjour\eclipse\null\WWW.YIFY-TORRENTS.COM.jpg
File downloaded at client successfully
and i would like to put my image in other directory
here:
C:\Users\Ronald\workspace\ServletUpload\src\com\image
thank for your help and have a good day.
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  May 19, 2014 at 8:49 am
  You can put any file location, read file path from a properties file.
  Reply
Kiran says:
May 17, 2014 at 3:05 am
Hi Pankaj,
It’s really nice tutorial you have posted. It’s worked for me. thanks.
Reply
Charan says:
May 8, 2014 at 5:29 am
When i click on upload button it is showing Exception in uploading file
Reply
Charan says:
May 8, 2014 at 5:27 am
List fileItemsList = uploader.parseRequest(request);
Im getting error in the above line saying that;
required:RequestContext
found:HttpServletRequest
reason:actual arguements HttpServletRequest cannot be converted to RequestContext by method invocation conversion
Reply
1. Kamiel Ahmadpour says:
  May 21, 2014 at 4:30 am
  You need to import from apache commons and not tomcat
  import org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileItem;
  import org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileUploadException;
  import org.apache.commons.fileupload.disk.DiskFileItemFactory;
  import org.apache.commons.fileupload.servlet.ServletFileUpload;
  Reply
  1. Preet says:
    December 14, 2015 at 10:56 pm
    @Kamiel Ahmadpour – It solved my problem which i was facing for a week and spending a long on my program and on internet.. your answer helped me a lot.. Thank you Sir.
    Reply
Sanjay says:
April 2, 2014 at 7:02 am
Im gettin g this error when i browse for a file and click upload. Pls help me asap.
Im just trying to upload a jar file(tightvnc-jviewer.jar). Im not able to upload any type of file. It gives me the same exception everytime.
Absolute Path at server=D:\Sanjay\Softwares\apache-tomcat-7.0.53\apache-tomcat-7.0.53\tmpfiles\D:\Sanjay\Softwares\tightvnc-jviewer.jar
java.io.FileNotFoundException: D:\Sanjay\Softwares\apache-tomcat-7.0.53\apache-tomcat-7.0.53\tmpfiles\D:\Sanjay\Softwares\tightvnc-jviewer.jar (The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.(FileOutputStream.java:179)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.(FileOutputStream.java:131)
at org.apache.commons.fileupload.disk.DiskFileItem.write(DiskFileItem.java:417)
at com.journaldev.servlet.UploadDownloadFileServlet.doPost(UploadDownloadFileServlet.java:85)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:646)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:727)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:303)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:208)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:220)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:122)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:501)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:170)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:98)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:950)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:116)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:408)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1040)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:607)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:313)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  April 2, 2014 at 4:09 pm
  The console log clearly shows D: drive in the file location two times, please check your directory location configurations.
  Reply
Diksha says:
March 26, 2014 at 5:43 pm
Sir if i m using glassfish then servlet is not found error is reflected can u help me in this is it mandatory to use glassfish?
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  March 26, 2014 at 6:33 pm
  Can you provide the exact error in server log? Try adding servlet-api jar in the project, usually it’s part of the container and we don’t need to add it.
  Reply
Sonerao JAdhav says:
March 18, 2014 at 7:16 am
Hello i am sonerao and very thank You for sharing this File upload Code it very Help full.
But at the time of code importing is giving some error.
i’m download u r .zip file and this file i import as it is into my eclipse it will be import success fully but it will give an error at the time of Project Deployment i have a app-ache tomcat 6.0.
So Can u Give some Conclusion .thank You
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  March 18, 2014 at 2:25 pm
  Use Tomcat 7.
  Reply
ana says:
March 17, 2014 at 7:10 pm
erro getServletContext() ?????
Reply
Hareesh says:
March 4, 2014 at 7:25 am
it showing an error—–import javax.servlet.annotation.WebListener; (cannot be resolved).
@WebListener (cannot be resolved a type)
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  March 4, 2014 at 7:44 am
  That is because you don’t have servlet-api jar in the build path. When I create “Dynamic Web Project” in Eclipse and choose runtime as Tomcat-7 that is added in my Eclipse Servers, the tomcat lib is added in the build path of the project having servlet-api jar and therefore no build/compile issues.
  Reply
  1. sudarshan says:
    May 27, 2014 at 11:11 am
    i want to fileuploading along with form data. i faced mediatype not supported problem
    Reply
msaahish says:
March 4, 2014 at 6:37 am
hi i want to upload images by creating folder with username and upload image to username folder for every user like that.
Reply
zanyar says:
January 27, 2014 at 10:25 am
hi
i want help me for upload files with details information after that send data to database with information bellow by JSP
like
(File_ID, File_name, File_Description,Date_file, Upload_file)
if any persons help me
Reply
ganesh says:
January 6, 2014 at 1:12 pm
i am create java website in eclipse, sql server 2008 r2 for database for servlet to database i use type 4 connectivity by using sql_jdbc 4 driver but they show me com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.sqlserverexception but ping was succeed…………….what i do please help me
Reply
Devendra says:
November 17, 2013 at 7:28 am
I have tried this example the upload part is fine. But the while downloading the file is always saved as UploadDownloadFileServlet with no extension so the file is not readable. Any suggestion …. ?
Ex when I click on Download “books.pdf” it saved as UploadDownloadFileServlet
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  November 18, 2013 at 11:58 pm
  Did you make any changes to the program? I run it again and it’s working fine for me.
  Reply
pralabh says:
November 2, 2013 at 7:23 am
sometimes on downloading file on client side, servlet gives content length -1 but file keeps on downloading. Any suggestions?
Reply
1. Pankaj says:
  November 4, 2013 at 5:06 am
  it must be related to file IO operations, add some logging statements and then check it.
  Reply