SERVLETS

28 sep- 2sep

Servlets -Exception Handling

When a servlet throws an exception, the web container searches the configurations in web.xml that use the exception-type element for a match with the thrown exception type.

You would have to use the error-page element in web.xml to specify the invocation of servlets in response to certain exceptions or HTTP status codes.

web.xml Configuration

Consider, you have an ErrorHandler servlet which would be called whenever there is any defined exception or error. Following would be the entry created in web.xml.

<!-- servlet definition -->
<servlet>
   <servlet-name>ErrorHandler</servlet-name>
   <servlet-class>ErrorHandler</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<!-- servlet mappings -->
<servlet-mapping>
   <servlet-name>ErrorHandler</servlet-name>
   <url-pattern>/ErrorHandler</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

<!-- error-code related error pages -->
<error-page>
   <error-code>404</error-code>
   <location>/ErrorHandler</location>
</error-page>

<error-page>
   <error-code>403</error-code>
   <location>/ErrorHandler</location>
</error-page>

<!-- exception-type related error pages -->
<error-page>
   <exception-type>
      javax.servlet.ServletException
   </exception-type >
   <location>/ErrorHandler</location>
</error-page>

<error-page>
   <exception-type>java.io.IOException</exception-type >
   <location>/ErrorHandler</location>
</error-page>

If you want to have a generic Error Handler for all the exceptions then you should define following error-page instead of defining separate error-page elements for every exception −

<error-page>
   <exception-type>java.lang.Throwable</exception-type >
   <location>/ErrorHandler</location>
</error-page>

Following are the points to be noted about above web.xml for Exception Handling −

• The servlet ErrorHandler is defined in usual way as any other servlet and configured in web.xml.
• If there is any error with status code either 404 (Not Found) or 403 (Forbidden ), then ErrorHandler servlet would be called.
• If the web application throws either ServletException or IOException, then the web container invokes the /ErrorHandler servlet.
• You can define different Error Handlers to handle different type of errors or exceptions. Above example is very much generic and hope it serve the purpose to explain you the basic concept.

Request Attributes − Errors/Exceptions

Following is the list of request attributes that an error-handling servlet can access to analyze the nature of error/exception.

Sr.No.	Attribute & Description
1	javax.servlet.error.status_code This attribute give status code which can be stored and analyzed after storing in a java.lang.Integer data type.
2	javax.servlet.error.exception_type This attribute gives information about exception type which can be stored and analysed after storing in a java.lang.Class data type.
3	javax.servlet.error.message This attribute gives information exact error message which can be stored and analyzed after storing in a java.lang.String data type.
4	javax.servlet.error.request_uri This attribute gives information about URL calling the servlet and it can be stored and analysed after storing in a java.lang.String data type.
5	javax.servlet.error.exception This attribute gives information about the exception raised, which can be stored and analysed.
6	javax.servlet.error.servlet_name This attribute gives servlet name which can be stored and analyzed after storing in a java.lang.String data type.

Error Handler Servlet Example

This example would give you basic understanding of Exception Handling in Servlet, but you can write more sophisticated filter applications using the same concept −

This example would give you basic understanding of Exception Handling in Servlet, but you can write more sophisticated filter applications using the same concept:

// Import required java libraries
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.util.*;

// Extend HttpServlet class
public class ErrorHandler extends HttpServlet {
 
   // Method to handle GET method request.
   public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, IOException {
         
      // Analyze the servlet exception       
      Throwable throwable = (Throwable)
      request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.exception");
      Integer statusCode = (Integer)
      request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.status_code");
      String servletName = (String)
      request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.servlet_name");
         
      if (servletName == null) {
         servletName = "Unknown";
      }
      String requestUri = (String)
      request.getAttribute("javax.servlet.error.request_uri");
      
      if (requestUri == null) {
         requestUri = "Unknown";
      }

      // Set response content type
      response.setContentType("text/html");

      PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
      String title = "Error/Exception Information";
      String docType =
         "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " +
         "transitional//en\">\n";
         
      out.println(docType +
         "<html>\n" +
         "<head><title>" + title + "</title></head>\n" +
         "<body bgcolor = \"#f0f0f0\">\n");

      if (throwable == null && statusCode == null) {
         out.println("<h2>Error information is missing</h2>");
         out.println("Please return to the <a href=\"" + 
            response.encodeURL("http://localhost:8080/") + 
            "\">Home Page</a>.");
      } else if (statusCode != null) {
         out.println("The status code : " + statusCode);
      } else {
         out.println("<h2>Error information</h2>");
         out.println("Servlet Name : " + servletName + "</br></br>");
         out.println("Exception Type : " + throwable.getClass( ).getName( ) + "</br></br>");
         out.println("The request URI: " + requestUri + "<br><br>");
         out.println("The exception message: " + throwable.getMessage( ));
      }
      out.println("</body>");
      out.println("</html>");
   }
   
   // Method to handle POST method request.
   public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, IOException {
      
      doGet(request, response);
   }
}

Compile ErrorHandler.java in usual way and put your class file in /webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes.

Let us add the following configuration in web.xml to handle exceptions −

<servlet>
   <servlet-name>ErrorHandler</servlet-name>
   <servlet-class>ErrorHandler</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<!-- servlet mappings -->
<servlet-mapping>
   <servlet-name>ErrorHandler</servlet-name>
   <url-pattern>/ErrorHandler</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

<error-page>
   <error-code>404</error-code>
   <location>/ErrorHandler</location>
</error-page>

<error-page>
   <exception-type>java.lang.Throwable</exception-type >
   <location>/ErrorHandler</location>
</error-page>

Now try to use a servlet which raise any exception or type a wrong URL, this would trigger Web Container to call ErrorHandler servlet and display an appropriate message as programmed. For example, if you type a wrong URL then it would display the following result −

The status code : 404

 

Servlets – Cookies Handling

Cookies are text files stored on the client computer and they are kept for various information tracking purpose. Java Servlets transparently supports HTTP cookies.

There are three steps involved in identifying returning users −

• Server script sends a set of cookies to the browser. For example name, age, or identification number etc.
• Browser stores this information on local machine for future use.
• When next time browser sends any request to web server then it sends those cookies information to the server and server uses that information to identify the user.

This chapter will teach you how to set or reset cookies, how to access them and how to delete them.

The Anatomy of a Cookie

Cookies are usually set in an HTTP header (although JavaScript can also set a cookie directly on a browser). A servlet that sets a cookie might send headers that look something like this −

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 21:03:38 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.9 (UNIX) PHP/4.0b3
Set-Cookie: name = xyz; expires = Friday, 04-Feb-07 22:03:38 GMT; 
   path = /; domain = tutorialspoint.com
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

As you can see, the Set-Cookie header contains a name value pair, a GMT date, a path and a domain. The name and value will be URL encoded. The expires field is an instruction to the browser to “forget” the cookie after the given time and date.

If the browser is configured to store cookies, it will then keep this information until the expiry date. If the user points the browser at any page that matches the path and domain of the cookie, it will resend the cookie to the server. The browser’s headers might look something like this −

GET / HTTP/1.0
Connection: Keep-Alive
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.6 (X11; I; Linux 2.2.6-15apmac ppc)
Host: zink.demon.co.uk:1126
Accept: image/gif, */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip
Accept-Language: en
Accept-Charset: iso-8859-1,*,utf-8
Cookie: name = xyz

A servlet will then have access to the cookie through the request method request.getCookies() which returns an array of Cookie objects.

Servlet Cookies Methods

Following is the list of useful methods which you can use while manipulating cookies in servlet.

Sr.No.	Method & Description
1	public void setDomain(String pattern) This method sets the domain to which cookie applies, for example tutorialspoint.com.
2	public String getDomain() This method gets the domain to which cookie applies, for example tutorialspoint.com.
3	public void setMaxAge(int expiry) This method sets how much time (in seconds) should elapse before the cookie expires. If you don’t set this, the cookie will last only for the current session.
4	public int getMaxAge() This method returns the maximum age of the cookie, specified in seconds, By default, -1 indicating the cookie will persist until browser shutdown.
5	public String getName() This method returns the name of the cookie. The name cannot be changed after creation.
6	public void setValue(String newValue) This method sets the value associated with the cookie
7	public String getValue() This method gets the value associated with the cookie.
8	public void setPath(String uri) This method sets the path to which this cookie applies. If you don’t specify a path, the cookie is returned for all URLs in the same directory as the current page as well as all subdirectories.
9	public String getPath() This method gets the path to which this cookie applies.
10	public void setSecure(boolean flag) This method sets the boolean value indicating whether the cookie should only be sent over encrypted (i.e. SSL) connections.
11	public void setComment(String purpose) This method specifies a comment that describes a cookie’s purpose. The comment is useful if the browser presents the cookie to the user.
12	public String getComment() This method returns the comment describing the purpose of this cookie, or null if the cookie has no comment.

Setting Cookies with Servlet

Setting cookies with servlet involves three steps −

(1) Creating a Cookie object − You call the Cookie constructor with a cookie name and a cookie value, both of which are strings.

Cookie cookie = new Cookie("key","value");

Keep in mind, neither the name nor the value should contain white space or any of the following characters −

[ ] ( ) = , " / ? @ : ;

(2) Setting the maximum age − You use setMaxAge to specify how long (in seconds) the cookie should be valid. Following would set up a cookie for 24 hours.

cookie.setMaxAge(60 * 60 * 24); 

(3) Sending the Cookie into the HTTP response headers − You use response.addCookie to add cookies in the HTTP response header as follows −

response.addCookie(cookie);

Example

Let us modify our Form Example to set the cookies for first and last name.

// Import required java libraries
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
 
// Extend HttpServlet class
public class HelloForm extends HttpServlet {

   public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, IOException {
      
      // Create cookies for first and last names.      
      Cookie firstName = new Cookie("first_name", request.getParameter("first_name"));
      Cookie lastName = new Cookie("last_name", request.getParameter("last_name"));

      // Set expiry date after 24 Hrs for both the cookies.
      firstName.setMaxAge(60*60*24);
      lastName.setMaxAge(60*60*24);

      // Add both the cookies in the response header.
      response.addCookie( firstName );
      response.addCookie( lastName );

      // Set response content type
      response.setContentType("text/html");
 
      PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
      String title = "Setting Cookies Example";
      String docType =
         "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " + "transitional//en\">\n";
      
      out.println(docType +
         "<html>\n" +
            "<head>
               <title>" + title + "</title>
            </head>\n" +
            
            "<body bgcolor = \"#f0f0f0\">\n" +
               "<h1 align = \"center\">" + title + "</h1>\n" +
               "<ul>\n" +
                  "  <li><b>First Name</b>: "
                  + request.getParameter("first_name") + "\n" +
                  "  <li><b>Last Name</b>: "
                  + request.getParameter("last_name") + "\n" +
               "</ul>\n" +
            "</body>
         </html>"
      );
   }
}

Compile the above servlet HelloForm and create appropriate entry in web.xml file and finally try following HTML page to call servlet.

 
<html>
   <body>
      <form action = "HelloForm" method = "GET">
         First Name: <input type = "text" name = "first_name">
         <br />
         Last Name: <input type = "text" name = "last_name" />
         <input type = "submit" value = "Submit" />
      </form>
   </body>
</html>

Keep above HTML content in a file Hello.htm and put it in <Tomcat-installationdirectory>/webapps/ROOT directory. When you would access http://localhost:8080/Hello.htm, here is the actual output of the above form.

First Name:
Last Name:  Try to enter First Name and Last Name and then click submit button. This would display first name and last name on your screen and same time it would set two cookies firstName and lastName which would be passed back to the server when next time you would press Submit button.

Next section would explain you how you would access these cookies back in your web application.

Reading Cookies with Servlet

To read cookies, you need to create an array of javax.servlet.http.Cookieobjects by calling the getCookies() method of HttpServletRequest. Then cycle through the array, and use getName() and getValue() methods to access each cookie and associated value.

Example

Let us read cookies which we have set in previous example −

// Import required java libraries
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
 
// Extend HttpServlet class
public class ReadCookies extends HttpServlet {
 
   public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, IOException {
      
      Cookie cookie = null;
      Cookie[] cookies = null;

      // Get an array of Cookies associated with this domain
      cookies = request.getCookies();

      // Set response content type
      response.setContentType("text/html");

      PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
      String title = "Reading Cookies Example";
      String docType =
         "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " +
         "transitional//en\">\n";
         
      out.println(docType +
         "<html>\n" +
         "<head><title>" + title + "</title></head>\n" +
         "<body bgcolor = \"#f0f0f0\">\n" );

      if( cookies != null ) {
         out.println("<h2> Found Cookies Name and Value</h2>");

         for (int i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
            cookie = cookies[i];
            out.print("Name : " + cookie.getName( ) + ",  ");
            out.print("Value: " + cookie.getValue( ) + " <br/>");
         }
      } else {
         out.println("<h2>No cookies founds</h2>");
      }
      out.println("</body>");
      out.println("</html>");
   }
}

Compile above servlet ReadCookies and create appropriate entry in web.xml file. If you would have set first_name cookie as “John” and last_name cookie as “Player” then running http://localhost:8080/ReadCookies would display the following result −

Found Cookies Name and Value

Name : first_name, Value: John 
Name : last_name,  Value: Player

Delete Cookies with Servlet

To delete cookies is very simple. If you want to delete a cookie then you simply need to follow up following three steps −

• Read an already existing cookie and store it in Cookie object.
• Set cookie age as zero using setMaxAge() method to delete an existing cookie
• Add this cookie back into response header.

Example

The following example would delete and existing cookie named “first_name” and when you would run ReadCookies servlet next time it would return null value for first_name.

// Import required java libraries
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
 
// Extend HttpServlet class
public class DeleteCookies extends HttpServlet {
 
   public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, IOException {
      
      Cookie cookie = null;
      Cookie[] cookies = null;
         
      // Get an array of Cookies associated with this domain
      cookies = request.getCookies();

      // Set response content type
      response.setContentType("text/html");
 
      PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
      String title = "Delete Cookies Example";
      String docType =
         "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " + "transitional//en\">\n";
         
      out.println(docType +
         "<html>\n" +
         "<head><title>" + title + "</title></head>\n" +
         "<body bgcolor = \"#f0f0f0\">\n" );
         
      if( cookies != null ) {
         out.println("<h2> Cookies Name and Value</h2>");

         for (int i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) {
            cookie = cookies[i];

            if((cookie.getName( )).compareTo("first_name") == 0 ) {
               cookie.setMaxAge(0);
               response.addCookie(cookie);
               out.print("Deleted cookie : " + cookie.getName( ) + "<br/>");
            }
            out.print("Name : " + cookie.getName( ) + ",  ");
            out.print("Value: " + cookie.getValue( )+" <br/>");
         }
      } else {
         out.println("<h2>No cookies founds</h2>");
      }
      out.println("</body>");
      out.println("</html>");
   }
}

Compile above servlet DeleteCookies and create appropriate entry in web.xml file. Now running http://localhost:8080/DeleteCookies would display the following result −

Cookies Name and Value

Deleted cookie : first_name

Name : first_name, Value: John

Name : last_name, Value: Player

Now try to run http://localhost:8080/ReadCookies and it would display only one cookie as follows −

Found Cookies Name and Value

 

Name : last_name,  Value: Player

 

Servlets – Database Access

Create the table Employee in TEST database as follows −

mysql> use TEST;
mysql> create table Employees (
   id int not null,
   age int not null,
   first varchar (255),
   last varchar (255)
);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.08 sec)
mysql>

 

Create Data Records

Finally you create few records in Employee table as follows −

mysql> INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (100, 18, 'Zara', 'Ali');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.05 sec)
 
mysql> INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (101, 25, 'Mahnaz', 'Fatma');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
 
mysql> INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (102, 30, 'Zaid', 'Khan');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
 
mysql> INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (103, 28, 'Sumit', 'Mittal');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
 
mysql>

 

Accessing a Database

Here is an example which shows how to access TEST database using Servlet.

// Loading required libraries
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.sql.*;
 
public class DatabaseAccess extends HttpServlet{

   public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, IOException {
   
      // JDBC driver name and database URL
      static final String JDBC_DRIVER = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver";  
      static final String DB_URL="jdbc:mysql://localhost/TEST";

      //  Database credentials
      static final String USER = "root";
      static final String PASS = "password";

      // Set response content type
      response.setContentType("text/html");
      PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
      String title = "Database Result";
      
      String docType =
         "<!doctype html public \"-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 " + "transitional//en\">\n";
      
      out.println(docType +
         "<html>\n" +
         "<head><title>" + title + "</title></head>\n" +
         "<body bgcolor = \"#f0f0f0\">\n" +
         "<h1 align = \"center\">" + title + "</h1>\n");
      try {
         // Register JDBC driver
         Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");

         // Open a connection
         Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(DB_URL, USER, PASS);

         // Execute SQL query
         Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
         String sql;
         sql = "SELECT id, first, last, age FROM Employees";
         ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(sql);

         // Extract data from result set
         while(rs.next()){
            //Retrieve by column name
            int id  = rs.getInt("id");
            int age = rs.getInt("age");
            String first = rs.getString("first");
            String last = rs.getString("last");

            //Display values
            out.println("ID: " + id + "<br>");
            out.println(", Age: " + age + "<br>");
            out.println(", First: " + first + "<br>");
            out.println(", Last: " + last + "<br>");
         }
         out.println("</body></html>");

         // Clean-up environment
         rs.close();
         stmt.close();
         conn.close();
      } catch(SQLException se) {
         //Handle errors for JDBC
         se.printStackTrace();
      } catch(Exception e) {
         //Handle errors for Class.forName
         e.printStackTrace();
      } finally {
         //finally block used to close resources
         try {
            if(stmt!=null)
               stmt.close();
         } catch(SQLException se2) {
         } // nothing we can do
         try {
            if(conn!=null)
            conn.close();
         } catch(SQLException se) {
            se.printStackTrace();
         } //end finally try
      } //end try
   }
}

Now let us compile above servlet and create following entries in web.xml

....
<servlet>
   <servlet-name>DatabaseAccess</servlet-name>
   <servlet-class>DatabaseAccess</servlet-class>
</servlet>
 
<servlet-mapping>
   <servlet-name>DatabaseAccess</servlet-name>
   <url-pattern>/DatabaseAccess</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
....

Now call this servlet using URL http://localhost:8080/DatabaseAccess which would display following response −

Database Result

ID: 100, Age: 18, First: Zara, Last: Ali
ID: 101, Age: 25, First: Mahnaz, Last: Fatma
ID: 102, Age: 30, First: Zaid, Last: Khan
ID: 103, Age: 28, First: Sumit, Last: Mittal

 

Servlets – File Uploading

A Servlet can be used with an HTML form tag to allow users to upload files to the server. An uploaded file could be a text file or image file or any document.

Creating a File Upload Form

The following HTM code below creates an uploader form. Following are the important points to be noted down −

• The form method attribute should be set to POST method and GET method can not be used
• The form enctype attribute should be set to multipart/form-data.
• The form action attribute should be set to a servlet file which would handle file uploading at backend server. Following example is using UploadServlet servlet to upload file.
• To upload a single file you should use a single <input …/> tag with attribute type=”file”. To allow multiple files uploading, include more than one input tags with different values for the name attribute. The browser associates a Browse button with each of them.

 
<html>
   <head>
      <title>File Uploading Form</title>
   </head>
   
   <body>
      <h3>File Upload:</h3>
      Select a file to upload: <br />
      <form action = "UploadServlet" method = "post" enctype = "multipart/form-data">
         <input type = "file" name = "file" size = "50" />
         <br />
         <input type = "submit" value = "Upload File" />
      </form>
   </body>
</html>

This will display following result which would allow to select a file from local PC and when user would click at “Upload File”, form would be submitted along with the selected fil −

 
File Upload: 
Select a file to upload: 
 
 

 
 

 
NOTE: This is just dummy form and would not work.

Writing Backend Servlet

Following is the servlet UploadServlet which would take care of accepting uploaded file and to store it in directory <Tomcat-installation-directory>/webapps/data. This directory name could also be added using an external configuration such as a context-param element in web.xml as follows −

 
<web-app>
   ....
   <context-param> 
      <description>Location to store uploaded file</description> 
      <param-name>file-upload</param-name> 
      <param-value>
         c:\apache-tomcat-5.5.29\webapps\data\
      </param-value> 
   </context-param>
   ....
</web-app>

Following is the source code for UploadServlet which can handle multiple file uploading at a time. Before proceeding you have make sure the followings −

• Following example depends on FileUpload, so make sure you have the latest version of commons-fileupload.x.x.jar file in your classpath.
• FileUpload depends on Commons IO, so make sure you have the latest version of commons-io-x.x.jar file in your classpath.
• While testing following example, you should upload a file which has less size than maxFileSize otherwise file would not be uploaded.
• Make sure you have created directories c:\temp and c:\apache-tomcat8.0.28\webapps\data well in advance.

// Import required java libraries
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
 
import javax.servlet.ServletConfig;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
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;
import org.apache.commons.io.output.*;

public class UploadServlet extends HttpServlet {
   
   private boolean isMultipart;
   private String filePath;
   private int maxFileSize = 50 * 1024;
   private int maxMemSize = 4 * 1024;
   private File file ;

   public void init( ){
      // Get the file location where it would be stored.
      filePath = getServletContext().getInitParameter("file-upload"); 
   }
   
   public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws ServletException, java.io.IOException {
   
      // Check that we have a file upload request
      isMultipart = ServletFileUpload.isMultipartContent(request);
      response.setContentType("text/html");
      java.io.PrintWriter out = response.getWriter( );
   
      if( !isMultipart ) {
         out.println("<html>");
         out.println("<head>");
         out.println("<title>Servlet upload</title>");  
         out.println("</head>");
         out.println("<body>");
         out.println("<p>No file uploaded</p>"); 
         out.println("</body>");
         out.println("</html>");
         return;
      }
  
      DiskFileItemFactory factory = new DiskFileItemFactory();
   
      // maximum size that will be stored in memory
      factory.setSizeThreshold(maxMemSize);
   
      // Location to save data that is larger than maxMemSize.
      factory.setRepository(new File("c:\\temp"));

      // Create a new file upload handler
      ServletFileUpload upload = new ServletFileUpload(factory);
   
      // maximum file size to be uploaded.
      upload.setSizeMax( maxFileSize );

      try { 
         // Parse the request to get file items.
         List fileItems = upload.parseRequest(request);
	
         // Process the uploaded file items
         Iterator i = fileItems.iterator();

         out.println("<html>");
         out.println("<head>");
         out.println("<title>Servlet upload</title>");  
         out.println("</head>");
         out.println("<body>");
   
         while ( i.hasNext () ) {
            FileItem fi = (FileItem)i.next();
            if ( !fi.isFormField () ) {
               // Get the uploaded file parameters
               String fieldName = fi.getFieldName();
               String fileName = fi.getName();
               String contentType = fi.getContentType();
               boolean isInMemory = fi.isInMemory();
               long sizeInBytes = fi.getSize();
            
               // Write the file
               if( fileName.lastIndexOf("\\") >= 0 ) {
                  file = new File( filePath + fileName.substring( fileName.lastIndexOf("\\"))) ;
               } else {
                  file = new File( filePath + fileName.substring(fileName.lastIndexOf("\\")+1)) ;
               }
               fi.write( file ) ;
               out.println("Uploaded Filename: " + fileName + "<br>");
            }
         }
         out.println("</body>");
         out.println("</html>");
         } catch(Exception ex) {
            System.out.println(ex);
         }
      }
      
      public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
         throws ServletException, java.io.IOException {

         throw new ServletException("GET method used with " +
            getClass( ).getName( )+": POST method required.");
      }
   }
}

Compile and Running Servlet

Compile above servlet UploadServlet and create required entry in web.xml file as follows.

 
<servlet>
   <servlet-name>UploadServlet</servlet-name>
   <servlet-class>UploadServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
   <servlet-name>UploadServlet</servlet-name>
   <url-pattern>/UploadServlet</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

Now try to upload files using the HTML form which you created above. When you would try http://localhost:8080/UploadFile.htm, it would display following result which would help you uploading any file from your local machine.

 
File Upload:

Select a file to upload: