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Spring MVC File Upload Example Tutorial – Single and Multiple Files

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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.

Spring MVC File Upload

spring mvc file upload example, MultipartFile, CommonsMultipartResolver, single and multiple files

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.

Spring File Uplaod Example Project, MultipartFile, MultipartResolver

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

Spring MVC Single File Upload Form

Spring MVC Single File Upload Response

Spring MVC Multiple File Upload Example

Spring Multiple File Upload Response

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.

Download Spring File Upload Project
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Comments

  1. very helpful tutorial. can you please provide me annotation based configuration as i don want to use servlet-contex.xml and root-contex.xml

    Reply

  4. 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.

    Reply

  6. 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;
    }

    Reply

  8. 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

    Reply

  11. 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.

    Reply

  13. 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….

    Reply

    • 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

      Reply

  16. 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)”>

    Reply

  17. 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.

    Reply

  18. 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!!!

    Reply

    • // Create the file on server
      File serverFile = new File(dir.getAbsolutePath()
      + File.separator + file.getOriginalFilename());

      This line code change will work for you.

      Reply

  20. 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.

    Reply

  21. Can you explain, how could I update or replace a (“multipart file”) defined as (“lob” in model ) to the mysql database.

    Reply

  24. 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.

    Reply

    • 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.

      Reply

  29. 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.

    Reply

  32. 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!

    Reply

  33. 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?

    Reply

  34. 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.. 🙂 🙂 🙂

    Reply

  36. 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 )…

    Reply

    • In controller, use getOriginalFilename() through MultipartFile’s instance. Here file.getOriginalFilename(); returns the name of original file as string.

      Reply

  37. 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?

    Reply

  41. 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.

    😉

    Reply

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