Spring MVC file download

In any web application, it is very much common that we need to download the file.
So Spring MVC provides a simple way for doing it.

We just need to follow below steps to achieve this
1) create a hyperlink in the view page to provide them a click to download the file
2) create the controller which can handle this click request and write a code to get the file from the server and return it

Lets see the project implementation

Project structure

Pom.xml with required dependencies

  1. <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  2.   xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
  3.   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  4.   <groupId>Spring</groupId>
  5.   <artifactId>SpringMVCFileDownload</artifactId>
  6.   <packaging>war</packaging>
  7.   <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  8.   <name>File Download Maven Webapp</name>
  9.   <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
  10.    <properties>
  11.         <org.springframework.version>4.2.0.RELEASE</org.springframework.version>
  12.     </properties>
  13.   <dependencies>
  14.     <dependency>
  15.       <groupId>junit</groupId>
  16.       <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
  17.       <version>3.8.1</version>
  18.       <scope>test</scope>
  19.     </dependency>
  20.     <dependency>
  21.             <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
  22.             <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
  23.             <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
  24.         </dependency>
  25.  
  26.         <dependency>
  27.             <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
  28.             <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
  29.             <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
  30.         </dependency>
  31.         <dependency>
  32.             <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
  33.             <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
  34.             <version>2.5</version>
  35.             <scope>provided</scope>
  36.         </dependency>
  37.         <dependency>
  38.     <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
  39.     <artifactId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl-api</artifactId>
  40.     <version>1.2.1</version>
  41. </dependency>
  42.  
  43. <!-- Apache Commons FileUpload -->
  44. <dependency>
  45.     <groupId>commons-fileupload</groupId>
  46.     <artifactId>commons-fileupload</artifactId>
  47.     <version>1.3.1</version>
  48. </dependency>
  49.  
  50. <!-- Apache Commons IO -->
  51. <dependency>
  52.     <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
  53.     <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
  54.     <version>2.4</version>
  55. </dependency>
  56. <dependency>
  57.     <groupId>taglibs</groupId>
  58.     <artifactId>standard</artifactId>
  59.     <version>1.1.2</version>
  60. </dependency>
  61.   </dependencies>
  62.   <build>
  63.     <finalName>SpringMVCFileDownload</finalName>
  64.     <plugins>
  65.             <plugin>
  66.                 <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  67.                 <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
  68.                 <version>2.5.1</version>
  69.                 <configuration>
  70.                     <source>1.8</source>
  71.                     <target>1.8</target>
  72.                 </configuration>
  73.             </plugin>
  74.         </plugins>
  75.   </build>
  76. </project>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>Spring</groupId>
  <artifactId>SpringMVCFileDownload</artifactId>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <name>File Download Maven Webapp</name>
  <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
   <properties>
		<org.springframework.version>4.2.0.RELEASE</org.springframework.version>
	</properties>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>junit</groupId>
      <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
      <version>3.8.1</version>
      <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
			<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
			<version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
			<artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
			<version>2.5</version>
			<scope>provided</scope>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
	<groupId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl</groupId>
	<artifactId>javax.servlet.jsp.jstl-api</artifactId>
	<version>1.2.1</version>
</dependency>

<!-- 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>
<dependency>
	<groupId>taglibs</groupId>
	<artifactId>standard</artifactId>
	<version>1.1.2</version>
</dependency>
  </dependencies>
  <build>
    <finalName>SpringMVCFileDownload</finalName>
    <plugins>
			<plugin>
				<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
				<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
				<version>2.5.1</version>
				<configuration>
					<source>1.8</source>
					<target>1.8</target>
				</configuration>
			</plugin>
		</plugins>
  </build>
</project>

web.xml

  1. <web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  2.     xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd"
  3.     version="3.1">
  4.  
  5.     <display-name>Spring MVC File Download</display-name>
  6.  
  7.     <!-- Spring MVC dispatcher servlet -->
  8.     <servlet>
  9.         <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
  10.         <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
  11.         <init-param>
  12.             <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
  13.             <param-value>
  14.             /WEB-INF/spring-mvc.xml,
  15.         </param-value>
  16.         </init-param>
  17.         <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
  18.     </servlet>
  19.     <servlet-mapping>
  20.         <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
  21.         <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
  22.     </servlet-mapping>
  23.  
  24.     <listener>
  25.         <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
  26.     </listener>
  27.  
  28. </web-app>
<web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd"
	version="3.1">

	<display-name>Spring MVC File Download</display-name>

	<!-- Spring MVC dispatcher servlet -->
	<servlet>
		<servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
		<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
		<init-param>
			<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
			<param-value>
			/WEB-INF/spring-mvc.xml,
		</param-value>
		</init-param>
		<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
	</servlet>
	<servlet-mapping>
		<servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
		<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
	</servlet-mapping>

	<listener>
		<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
	</listener>

</web-app>

create the spring configuration file

  1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  2. <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  3.     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
  4.     xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
  5.     xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
  6.     xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
  7.        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.2.xsd
  8.        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
  9.        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.2.xsd
  10.        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
  11.        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.2.xsd">
  12.  
  13.     <context:component-scan base-package="com.kb.*" />
  14.     <mvc:annotation-driven />
  15.  
  16.     <bean id="viewResolver"
  17.         class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
  18.         <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/pages/" />
  19.         <property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
  20.     </bean>
  21. </beans>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
	xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
	xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.2.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.2.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.2.xsd">

	<context:component-scan base-package="com.kb.*" />
	<mvc:annotation-driven />

	<bean id="viewResolver"
		class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
		<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/pages/" />
		<property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
	</bean>
</beans>

create the FileDownloadController

  1. package com.kb.controllers;
  2.  
  3. import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
  4. import java.io.File;
  5. import java.io.FileInputStream;
  6. import java.io.FileOutputStream;
  7. import java.io.IOException;
  8. import java.io.OutputStream;
  9.  
  10. import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
  11. import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
  12. import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
  13.  
  14. import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
  15. import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
  16. import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
  17. import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam;
  18. import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseBody;
  19. import org.springframework.web.context.ServletContextAware;
  20. import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;
  21. import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;
  22.  
  23. @Controller
  24. public class FileDownloadController implements ServletContextAware {
  25.  
  26.     private ServletContext servletContext;
  27.    
  28.     private static final int BUFFER_SIZE = 4096;
  29.    
  30.      private String filePath = "/downloads/example.pdf";
  31.    
  32.    
  33.     @RequestMapping(value = "/displayForm", method = RequestMethod.GET)
  34.     public ModelAndView downloadFileFormDisplay() {
  35.  
  36.         return new ModelAndView("downloadFile");
  37.        
  38.     }
  39.  
  40.    
  41.     //Handle the single file upload
  42.    
  43.     @RequestMapping(value = "/downloadFile", method = RequestMethod.GET)
  44.     public void doDownload(HttpServletRequest request,HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException {
  45.        
  46.         // get the absolute path of the application
  47.        
  48.         String appPath = servletContext.getRealPath("");
  49.         System.out.println("appPath = " + appPath);
  50.  
  51.         // absolute path of the file
  52.         String fullPath = appPath + filePath;      
  53.         File downloadFile = new File(fullPath);
  54.         FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(downloadFile);
  55.          
  56.         // MIME type of the file
  57.         String mimeType = servletContext.getMimeType(fullPath);
  58.         if (mimeType == null) {
  59.             // Set to binary type if MIME mapping not found
  60.             mimeType = "application/octet-stream";
  61.         }
  62.         System.out.println("MIME type: " + mimeType);
  63.  
  64.         // set content attributes for the response object
  65.         response.setContentType(mimeType);
  66.         response.setContentLength((int) downloadFile.length());
  67.  
  68.         // set headers for the response object
  69.         String headerKey = "Content-Disposition";
  70.         String headerValue = String.format("attachment; filename=\"%s\"",
  71.                 downloadFile.getName());
  72.         response.setHeader(headerKey, headerValue);
  73.  
  74.         // get output stream of the response
  75.         OutputStream outStream = response.getOutputStream();
  76.  
  77.         byte[] buffer = new byte[BUFFER_SIZE];
  78.         int bytesRead = -1;
  79.  
  80.         // write each byte of data  read from the input stream into the output stream
  81.         while ((bytesRead = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
  82.             outStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
  83.         }
  84.  
  85.         inputStream.close();
  86.         outStream.close();
  87.  }
  88.    
  89.     public void setServletContext(ServletContext servletContext) {
  90.         this.servletContext=servletContext;
  91.        
  92.     }
  93.  
  94. }
package com.kb.controllers;

import java.io.BufferedOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;

import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

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.context.ServletContextAware;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

@Controller
public class FileDownloadController implements ServletContextAware {

	private ServletContext servletContext;
	
	private static final int BUFFER_SIZE = 4096;
	
	 private String filePath = "/downloads/example.pdf";
	
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/displayForm", method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public ModelAndView downloadFileFormDisplay() {

		return new ModelAndView("downloadFile");
		
	}

	
	//Handle the single file upload
	
	@RequestMapping(value = "/downloadFile", method = RequestMethod.GET)
	public void doDownload(HttpServletRequest request,HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException {
		
		// get the absolute path of the application
       
        String appPath = servletContext.getRealPath("");
        System.out.println("appPath = " + appPath);
 
        // absolute path of the file
        String fullPath = appPath + filePath;      
        File downloadFile = new File(fullPath);
        FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(downloadFile);
         
        // MIME type of the file
        String mimeType = servletContext.getMimeType(fullPath);
        if (mimeType == null) {
            // Set to binary type if MIME mapping not found
            mimeType = "application/octet-stream";
        }
        System.out.println("MIME type: " + mimeType);
 
        // set content attributes for the response object
        response.setContentType(mimeType);
        response.setContentLength((int) downloadFile.length());
 
        // set headers for the response object
        String headerKey = "Content-Disposition";
        String headerValue = String.format("attachment; filename=\"%s\"",
                downloadFile.getName());
        response.setHeader(headerKey, headerValue);
 
        // get output stream of the response
        OutputStream outStream = response.getOutputStream();
 
        byte[] buffer = new byte[BUFFER_SIZE];
        int bytesRead = -1;
 
        // write each byte of data  read from the input stream into the output stream
        while ((bytesRead = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
            outStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }
 
        inputStream.close();
        outStream.close();
 }
	
	public void setServletContext(ServletContext servletContext) {
		this.servletContext=servletContext;
		
	}

}

In this controller, we are reading the file from the specified path(in our case it is inside our project downloads folder and it is example.pdf file) and then finally writing it to the response output stream.

We have used MIME type check to add default MIME type as binary if no MIME mapping is found

Create the view page downloadFile.jsp

  1. <%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
  2.     pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
  3. <%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%>
  4. <%@ taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags"%>
  5. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
  6. <html>
  7. <head>
  8. <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
  9. <title>Hello</title>
  10. </head>
  11. <body>
  12.    <center>
  13.         <h2><a href="${pageContext.request.contextPath}/downloadFile">Click here to download the file</a></h2>
  14.     </center>
  15. </body>
  16. </html>
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
    pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title>Hello</title>
</head>
<body>
   <center>
        <h2><a href="${pageContext.request.contextPath}/downloadFile">Click here to download the file</a></h2>
    </center>
</body>
</html>

Deploy the application and access the below url

http://localhost:8080/SpringMVCFileDownload/displayForm

Click on the hyperlink and it will ask for the confirmation to download as below

Click on save

File will be downloaded in your system downlad folder by default.

Change the browser setting to download it into specific path if you want.

Download this project SpringMVCFileDownload.zip

About the Author

Raj
Founder of javainsimpleway.com
I love Java and open source technologies and very much passionate about software development.
I like to share my knowledge with others especially on technology 🙂
I have given all the examples as simple as possible to understand for the beginners.
All the code posted on my blog is developed,compiled and tested in my development environment.
If you find any mistakes or bugs, Please drop an email to kb.knowledge.sharing@gmail.com

Connect with me on Facebook for more updates

Share this article on