Question

I am using struts to develop my web application. I wrote a method which generates excel file and saves it based on the data model I pass.. Works great on my local machine since tomcat is present locally.. But now I’ve moved my application to a central server.. Now if I use the method it stores generates the excel file in the server not in the client machine which are hitting the server.. I need to pass it from server to client through http.. How do I do that?

public static void populateExcelDoc(List<ColumnList> listOfColumns,RowList rowlist,String filename)
{
    try
    {
        WorkbookSettings ws = new WorkbookSettings();
        ws.setLocale(new Locale("en", "EN"));

        WritableWorkbook workbook = Workbook.createWorkbook(new File(filename+".xls"), ws);
        WritableSheet s = workbook.createSheet("Sheet1", 1);
        writeDataSheetifx1(s,listOfColumns,rowlist);
        workbook.write();
        workbook.close();

        Process p = 
                  Runtime.getRuntime()
                   .exec("rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler " + filename+".xls");
    }
    catch(IOException e)
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    catch(WriteException e)
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}  

This is what my current code looks like.. What change do I need to make? Should I be using HttpServletResponse response?

Answer 1

In Struts2 there is stream result for sending data to the HttpServletResponse.

In your struts.xml configure your action to use stream result.

<action name="exceldoc" method="populateExcelDoc" class="ExcelDocAction">
  <result name="success" type="stream">
    <param name="inputName">inputStream</param>
    <param name="contentType">application/vnd.ms-excel</param>
    <param name="contentDisposition">attachment;filename=excel.xls</param>
  </result>
</action>

And inside your action create private InputStream inputStream; with getters/setters and write your file to it inside your method.