File Uploading is a very common task in any web application. We have earlier seen how to upload files in Servlet and Struts2 File Uploading. Today we will learn about Spring File upload, specifically Spring MVC File Upload for single and multiple files.
Table of Contents
Spring MVC File Upload
Spring MVC framework provide support for uploading files by integrating Apache Commons FileUpload API. The process to upload files is very easy and requires simple configurations. We will create a simple Spring MVC project in STS that will look like below image.
Most of the part is the boiler-plate code generated by STS tool, we will focus into the changes that are required to utilize Spring file upload integration.
Maven Dependencies for Apache Commons FileUpload
First of all we need to add Apache Commons FileUpload dependencies in our pom.xml file, so that required jar files are part of the web application. Below is the dependency snippet from my pom.xml file.
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<!-- Apache Commons FileUpload -->
<dependency>
<groupId>commons-fileupload</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-fileupload</artifactId>
<version>1.3.1</version>
</dependency>
<!-- Apache Commons IO -->
<dependency>
<groupId>commons-io</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
<version>2.4</version>
</dependency>
Spring File Upload Form Views
We will create two JSP pages to allow single and multiple file uploads in spring web application.
upload.jsp view code:
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<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<%@ page session="false" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Upload File Request Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<form method="POST" action="uploadFile" enctype="multipart/form-data">
File to upload: <input type="file" name="file"><br />
Name: <input type="text" name="name"><br /> <br />
<input type="submit" value="Upload"> Press here to upload the file!
</form>
</body>
</html>
uploadMultiple.jsp view code:
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<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<%@ page session="false" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Upload Multiple File Request Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<form method="POST" action="uploadMultipleFile" enctype="multipart/form-data">
File1 to upload: <input type="file" name="file"><br />
Name1: <input type="text" name="name"><br /> <br />
File2 to upload: <input type="file" name="file"><br />
Name2: <input type="text" name="name"><br /> <br />
<input type="submit" value="Upload"> Press here to upload the file!
</form>
</body>
</html>
Notice that these files are simple HTML files, I am not using any JSP or Spring tags to avoid complexity. The important point to note is that form enctype should be multipart/form-data, so that Spring web application knows that the request contains file data that needs to be processed.
Also note that for multiple files, the form field “file” and “name” are same in the input fields, so that the data will be sent in the form of array. We will take the input array and parse the file data and store it in the given file name.
Spring MVC Multipart Configuration
To utilize Apache Commons FileUpload for handling multipart requests, all we need to do is configure multipartResolver bean with class as org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver.
Our final Spring configuration file looks like below.
servlet-context.xml code:
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">
<!-- DispatcherServlet Context: defines this servlet's request-processing
infrastructure -->
<!-- Enables the Spring MVC @Controller programming model -->
<annotation-driven />
<!-- Handles HTTP GET requests for /resources/** by efficiently serving
up static resources in the ${webappRoot}/resources directory -->
<resources mapping="/**" location="/" />
<!-- Resolves views selected for rendering by @Controllers to .jsp resources
in the /WEB-INF/views directory -->
<beans:bean
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
<beans:property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/" />
<beans:property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
</beans:bean>
<beans:bean id="multipartResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver">
<!-- setting maximum upload size -->
<beans:property name="maxUploadSize" value="100000" />
</beans:bean>
<context:component-scan base-package="com.journaldev.spring.controller" />
</beans:beans>
Notice that I am setting maximum upload size limit by providing the maxUploadSize property value for multipartResolver bean. If you will look into the source code of DispatcherServlet class, you will see that a MultipartResolver variable with name multipartResolver is defined and initialized in below method.
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private void initMultipartResolver(ApplicationContext context)
{
try
{
this.multipartResolver = ((MultipartResolver)context.getBean("multipartResolver", MultipartResolver.class));
if (this.logger.isDebugEnabled()) {
this.logger.debug("Using MultipartResolver [" + this.multipartResolver + "]");
}
}
catch (NoSuchBeanDefinitionException ex)
{
this.multipartResolver = null;
if (this.logger.isDebugEnabled())
this.logger.debug("Unable to locate MultipartResolver with name 'multipartResolver': no multipart request handling provided");
}
}
With this configuration, any request with enctype as multipart/form-data will be handled by multipartResolver before passing on to the Controller class.
Spring File Upload Controller Class
Controller class code is very simple, we need to define handler methods for the uploadFile and uploadMultipleFile URIs.
FileUploadController.java code:
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package com.journaldev.spring.controller;
import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseBody;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;
/**
* Handles requests for the application file upload requests
*/
@Controller
public class FileUploadController {
private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory
.getLogger(FileUploadController.class);
/**
* Upload single file using Spring Controller
*/
@RequestMapping(value = "/uploadFile", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public @ResponseBody
String uploadFileHandler(@RequestParam("name") String name,
@RequestParam("file") MultipartFile file) {
if (!file.isEmpty()) {
try {
byte[] bytes = file.getBytes();
// Creating the directory to store file
String rootPath = System.getProperty("catalina.home");
File dir = new File(rootPath + File.separator + "tmpFiles");
if (!dir.exists())
dir.mkdirs();
// Create the file on server
File serverFile = new File(dir.getAbsolutePath()
+ File.separator + name);
BufferedOutputStream stream = new BufferedOutputStream(
new FileOutputStream(serverFile));
stream.write(bytes);
stream.close();
logger.info("Server File Location="
+ serverFile.getAbsolutePath());
return "You successfully uploaded file=" + name;
} catch (Exception e) {
return "You failed to upload " + name + " => " + e.getMessage();
}
} else {
return "You failed to upload " + name
+ " because the file was empty.";
}
}
/**
* Upload multiple file using Spring Controller
*/
@RequestMapping(value = "/uploadMultipleFile", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public @ResponseBody
String uploadMultipleFileHandler(@RequestParam("name") String[] names,
@RequestParam("file") MultipartFile[] files) {
if (files.length != names.length)
return "Mandatory information missing";
String message = "";
for (int i = 0; i < files.length; i++) {
MultipartFile file = files[i];
String name = names[i];
try {
byte[] bytes = file.getBytes();
// Creating the directory to store file
String rootPath = System.getProperty("catalina.home");
File dir = new File(rootPath + File.separator + "tmpFiles");
if (!dir.exists())
dir.mkdirs();
// Create the file on server
File serverFile = new File(dir.getAbsolutePath()
+ File.separator + name);
BufferedOutputStream stream = new BufferedOutputStream(
new FileOutputStream(serverFile));
stream.write(bytes);
stream.close();
logger.info("Server File Location="
+ serverFile.getAbsolutePath());
message = message + "You successfully uploaded file=" + name
+ "<br />";
} catch (Exception e) {
return "You failed to upload " + name + " => " + e.getMessage();
}
}
return message;
}
}
Notice the use of Spring annotations that make our life easier and code looks more readable.
uploadFileHandler method is used to handle single file upload scenario whereas uploadMultipleFileHandler method is used to handle multiple files upload scenario. Actually we could have a single method to handle both the scenarios.
Now export the application as WAR file and deploy it into Tomcat servlet container.
When we run our application, below images shows us the request and responses.
Spring MVC File Upload Example
You can check the server logs to know the location where the files have been stored.
Download the project from above link and play around with it to learn more.
vishwa says
very helpful tutorial. can you please provide me annotation based configuration as i don want to use servlet-contex.xml and root-contex.xml
Himanshu Sharma says
Getting status 400-Required String Parameter ‘name’ is not present
Cristian says
hi could you explain how to run it with apache tompcat 8.5 thanks
Sujata says
I am getting the error “Application download did not succeed. Check network connection.”. Upto Server File Creation Program works fine.But the folder is not created at specified location. Plz reply.
Pankaj says
If folder is not getting created, then it could be the issue that your user account don’t have required privileges.
Jam says
Did any one faces MVC Portlet Mode mappings conflict between method and type level: [uploadFile] versus [VIEW]
kalantary says
i have a program than submit things to db . i want to add submit file to my code. i want help
code in controller
@RequestMapping(value = “/rest/add-new-record/{tableName}”, method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String addNewRecord(@PathVariable String tableName, @RequestParam Map allRequestParams, HttpServletRequest request)
throws SQLException {
tableContentService.addNewRow(allRequestParams, tableName);
TableMetaData metaData=getTableMetaData(tableName);
metaData.getColumnMetaData();
ColumnMetaData columnMetaData=new ColumnMetaData();
return “content-manager”;
}
code in service
public void addNewRow(Map recordData, String tableName) throws SQLException {
tableContentDAO.addNewRecord(recordData,tableName, null);
}
//class java
public void addNewRecord(Map recordData, String tableName, String id) throws SQLException {
OracleConnection connection = (OracleConnection) getConnection();
Statement statement;
Set columnNames = recordData.keySet();
List listValues = new ArrayList();
ResultSet resultSet = null;
String pk_column = null;
DatabaseMetaData databaseMetaData = connection.getMetaData();
resultSet = databaseMetaData.getPrimaryKeys(null, connection.getUserName(), tableName);
while (resultSet.next()) {
pk_column = resultSet.getString(“COLUMN_NAME”);
}
// System.out.println(“pk_column==================”+ pk_column);
for (Map.Entry stringStringEntry : recordData.entrySet()) {
String help = null;
if (!stringStringEntry.getKey().equals(pk_column)) {
if (isValidDate((String) stringStringEntry.getValue())) {
help = ” TO_DATE(‘ ” + stringStringEntry.getValue() + ” ‘, ‘YYYY/MM/DD’)”;
listValues.add(help);
}//if is file
else {
listValues.add((String) stringStringEntry.getValue());
}
}
}
StringJoiner columnNameJoiner = new StringJoiner(“,”);
columnNameJoiner.add(pk_column);
// System.out.println(“columnNameJoiner=================”+ columnNameJoiner);
for (String columnName : columnNames) {
if (columnName != null && !columnName.equals(pk_column) && !columnName.equals(“username”)) {
columnNameJoiner.add(columnName);
}
}
// System.out.println(“columnNameJoiner=================”+ columnNameJoiner);
StringJoiner recordDataJoiner = new StringJoiner(“,”);
for (String value : listValues) {
if (value.contains(“TO_DATE”)) {
recordDataJoiner.add(value);
} else {
recordDataJoiner.add(“‘” + value + “‘”);
}
}
//*******************************************************************************************************
String query;
// columnNameJoiner.toString() ID,ID,NAME
/*if (id == null) {
query = String.format(“Insert into %s (%s) values” +
” ((SELECT COALESCE(MAX(%s)+1,1) FROM %s) ,%s)”,
tableName, columnNameJoiner.toString(),
pk_column, tableName, recordDataJoiner.toString());
} else {
query = String.format(“Insert into %s (%s) values (%s ,%s)”,
tableName, columnNameJoiner.toString(), id, recordDataJoiner.toString());
}
}*/
query = String.format(“Insert into %s (%s) values” +
” ((SELECT COALESCE(MAX(%s)+1,1) FROM %s) ,%s)”,
tableName, columnNameJoiner.toString(),
pk_column, tableName, recordDataJoiner.toString());
System.out.println(query);
statement = connection.createStatement();
statement.executeQuery(query);
JdbcUtils.closeConnection(connection);
}
code in js
function createFile(field) {
var required = field.required ? “required” : “”;
var html=””;
//todo AliMohamadi: readable writable difference
// var disabled = field.
html +=””;
html +=””;
html += field.comment;
html += “”;
return html;
}
Sahas says
Hi Pankaj,
Could you please also explain how we can return file content from spring controller.
Angelica says
Hi, your tutorial it’s really helpfull, but I have a question. Where can I locate the files? because where you are saving them they are erase every time you deploy the application, and place the into de project it’s not an option, Do you have any advise? thanks
Prabhat says
How can I get the progress while uploading the file?
Surakshar says
Very helpful tutorial. Also thanks for the webpage face lift.
Abhijeet Kale says
I tried this tutorial but I get follwing exception
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommansMultipartResolver
I doensn’t able to understand why this exception comes Please help me how to resolve this exception.
Surendra says
Add two jar as mentioned in pom.xml
1.commons-fileupload-1.3.1.jar
2. commons-io-2.4.jar
anderson brito sousa says
I receive the return message on the same page?
pj_zhong says
Thanks for this example
But I deploy this example in tomcat and upload file.
It show me “You failed to upload => E:\apache-tomcat-8.0.26-2\tmpFiles (Access is denied)”;
I have used both “catalina.home” and “catalina.base”, but it doesn’t work……..
Could you give me some advices?
Sorry for poor English….
vinita singh says
plz. some one answer the about mention problem. as i am too getting the same error
psd says
I tried many times with different file storage location folders but I got same error as Access is Denied ..
Someone suggest me the way to get rid of it.
Regards
Luciano says
Hi, Thanks for the tutorial.
Can U show me how to override the MVC multipart resolver to customize it?
Jayshree says
I am getting the 400-bad-request when uploading the file with more than 2 MB size.
Can you please help me?
Pankaj says
It’s because of maxUploadSize configuration in spring context file, increase the size as per your requirement.
nishi says
Hi Pankaj,
This tutorial is helped me lot to understand the file upload in spring MVC. In this example after submitting the POST request, it displays the status(Success/filure).
I wanted to show the message in the same jsp page which contains other fields(it gets data from db) also.
I have implemented controller same way, what I can do changes so I can get the same jsp page with other fields data and upload message in same page. Please help me on this.
my jsp page:
File to upload:
Server Name
0){
for(VmclassObj vm:vms){
%>
<td id='name_’>
<input type="checkbox" name='devices' id='’ onClick=”toggleSelectAll(false)”>
Kiran says
I have this task to upload a CSV to 2 different tables(user- having userid,username,userhobby,userhealthstatus,userlocation-having Country,city,pincode) in the database using a single multipart form which only provides values for only a few columns(say -username,userhobby,pincode) in those 2 tables. Could you please help show how this can be achieved.
David says
Hi.
Everything works great!!!.
Just one question: If I use the original file name with is called like this: myFilé.txt the file uploaded is stored like this: myFilé.txt
Do you know how to fix this??
Thanks anyway!!!
Mariana says
problably is your pageEncoding, try changing ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8
abhishek kumar says
// Create the file on server
File serverFile = new File(dir.getAbsolutePath()
+ File.separator + file.getOriginalFilename());
This line code change will work for you.
asit says
Can you provide a RestTemplate client example to call the rest service
sudeep says
Sir, Its really good tutorial. But can you explain how to retrieve file from this folder? I tried but it give me Not allowed to load local resource error. please response.
Saurav says
Can you explain, how could I update or replace a (“multipart file”) defined as (“lob” in model ) to the mysql database.
Prabal Singh says
sir i want to upload files on server but also want to create thumbnails of the image please help me
Ravish says
Hi,
How can i upload larger file like 200 and 300 MB file?
Ivan says
Just increase value of maxUploadSize in servlet-context.xml
Binoy KB says
Hey Pankaj, I am able to upload file if I use one file upload option but when I use multiplefile upload option then in controller I always see one file even if I upload 2 images. I had seen one image in controller using debug option in eclipse. Can you please let me know what I am missing? I will really appreciate your help. Thanks, binoy.
Binoy KB says
Never mind my last request. I have solved it myself by upgrading spring 3.0.1 to spring 4.1.4. That was a bug in spring 3.0.1 and that is resolved by spring spring 3.1.0.
Binoy KB says
Thanks Pankaj. Your tutorial helped me a lot.
Aravinthan.K says
I have Successfully saved my files into particular folder . Thanks. How to update images and Files ?
Akhil says
Can you tell me how to do the same thing if i have to select the file from a remote server??
Aravinthan.K says
Thanks for this Great Tutorial. Working Fine !!!!.
suresh says
hi
trying to run the application in tomcat but it is throwing below exception.
HTTP Status 400 – Required String parameter ‘name’ is not present
can you explain what it is.
Parag says
I want to read the data of that excel file
please share the example
deepak says
how do we upload multiple image file in database using spring mvc.Please share some idea about this one.
sekhar says
Hi,I have one problem .i want to edit existed image. how could i do that
Renan says
Thanks for this post!
A question: where should i put my uploaded images so i can show it on my site?
For example: I upload a file.jpg and put it where, so i can then show i dinamically page with a
Thanks!
Pankaj says
You can create a folder for images and then use “img” HTML tag to embed images from the server location.
Arvie says
Thanks for this example. I have a question regarding the file path. Do you know how I am able to put the file path in a database? But before this, how to get the file path in the first place?
Pankaj says
Use File.getCanonicalPath() or File.getAbsolutePath() to get the path details. You can save it as String in database column.
Shekar says
It’s really great example Mr. Pankaj.. Thanks for this post
Anyways I am not able to upload large file with the above code. Actually I am trying to upload a movie of size 3 GB. The file is not getting uploaded and the control is entering into Catch block with Null exception message.. Means not able to see any exception also. When I choose the movie and click on upload it is keep waiting for around 2 mins and showing an error message saying “You failed to upload mm => null”
Even I have increased the value for CommonsMultipartResolver’s maxUploadSize (in the spring configuration file).
Can anybody please help me out on this..
Thanks in advance.. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Akshay says
thanku soooooooooooo much for ur awesome code! it helpd us a lottttttt…. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
AKRICK says
Very nice tutorial……..
But, What changes do i make for …..i want to store with same name for file that of orignal name where its get browsed…means if i browsed file named “abc.txt”….so how can i store with that abc(same name )…
Shubham Chaurasia says
In controller, use getOriginalFilename() through MultipartFile’s instance. Here file.getOriginalFilename(); returns the name of original file as string.
Shubham Chaurasia says
It shows me “You failed to upload => D:\shubhamTmp (Access is denied)”.
At any given location it shows me “Access is denied”.
What should I do now?
Shubham Chaurasia says
Sorry my mistake.
The issue is resolved now.
Thanks for a great tutorial.
Hareesh Alil Vedurajan says
Hi,
Even I’m getting the same error you mentioned (Access is denied). Please tell me how you resolved the issue.
Anurag Dikshit says
use catalina.base instead of catalina.home
String rootPath = System.getProperty(“catalina.home”);
String rootPath = System.getProperty(“catalina.base );
santu says
hi shubham, i am facing same issue can you please tell me how you resolved the issue
Chris Wong says
Nice tutorial. Thanks
Kumar says
Good one. thanks…
Rizzo7 says
Got this tutorial working in one shot. Thanks for the clear explanation!!!
CrAfTy says
Thanks for this example.
I had a problem with iexplorer 8, i don´t know why @ResponseBody don´t like it and i have to add “produces = “text/plain”” in RequestMapping:
@RequestMapping(value = “/uploadFile”, method = RequestMethod.POST
,produces = “text/plain”)
public @ResponseBody
String uploadFileHandler(@RequestParam(“name”) String name,
@RequestParam(“file”) MultipartFile file) {
…
…
…
…
…
Sorry for my english and thank you one more time for this good example.
😉