I am writing an update page in JSTL where the user inputs some numbers. I then call a java bean - passing the numbers as parameters - which, using JFreeChart, creates a PNG image. All of this works fine when I save the file directly on my hard drive using
ImageIO.write(myBufferedImage, "png", new File("C:/testChart.png"));
I can also save the image to my tomcat directory and view it when I am running the website on my localhost. However, once this code is up on a server that is not my local host, saving to the tomcat directory won't work. How do I write this file directly to the server..say to the WebContent folder of my Eclipse project (where the java bean is in the src folder)? Thanks in advance for any help.
I would suggest that you use the ServletUtilities class. It saves in the java tempdir AND cleans up when the session is invalidated. :) Another hint for then displaying the file is to use the DisplayChart servlet to get your images.
This goes in web.xml
<servlet>
<servlet-name>DisplayChart</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.jfree.chart.servlet.DisplayChart</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>DisplayChart</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/servlet/DisplayChart</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
This is then how you display the image using jstl:
<img src="<c:url value='/servlet/DisplayChart?'><c:param name='filename' value='${yourFileNameHERE}' /></c:url>" alt=""/>
Write it to the directory path returned from System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir");