Question

in my grails application using jasper Reports i am creating report in pdf format, i want to make it available it for downloading.. so in which directory of my application i need to save file…?
thanks in advance

Answer 1

Possible duplicate?

You can store the files any where you like but, be aware of the directory your storing the files in so they don’t end up taking up all the disk space if you not actively cleaning them up.

so, here is what i would do if you want to store the files and allow the user to download them now or later (not tested and it could be better but shows the concept)…

create a class that represents your directory of reports

class ReportDirectory{

   static final String path = "./path/to/reports/"; //<-- generic path on your SERVER!

   static{
       //static initializer to make sure directory gets created.  Better ways to do this but this will work!

       File pathAsFile = new File(path).mkdirs()

       if (pathAsFile.exists()){
          println("CREATED REPORT DIRECTORY @ ${pathAsFile.absolutePath}");
       }else{
          println("FAILED TO CREATE REPORT DIRECTORY @ ${pathAsFile.absolutePath}");
       }

   }

   public static File[] listFiles(){
       return new File(path).listFiles(); //<-- maybe use filters to just pull pdfs?
   }

   public static void addFile(File file){
       FilesUtil.copyFileToDirectory(file, new File(path)); //<-- using apache-commons-io
   }

   public static void deleteAll(){
       listFiles().each(){ fileToDelete ->
           fileToDelete.delete();
       }
   }

   public static File findFile(String name){
       listFiles().each(){ fileToCheck ->

           if (fileToCheck.name.equals(name)){
               return fileToCheck
           }
       }
       return null
   }

}

Then in your controller you could do things like this….

class ReportController{

   def runReport = {
       File report = createReport() //<-- your method to create a report.
       ReportDirectory.addFile(report);

       redirect(action:"downloadFle" params:[fileName:report.name])

   }    


   def showAllFiles = {
       [files:ReportDirectory.listFiles()]
   }

   def downloadFile = {
      def fileName = params.fileName;

      def fileToDownload = ReportDirectory.findFile(fileName);

      if (fileToDownload){

      response.setContentType("application/octet-stream")
      response.setHeader("Content-disposition", "attachment;filename=${fileToDownload .getName()}")
      response.outputStream << fileToDownload.newInputStream()  //<-- ask the user to download
     }else{
         //handle when the file is not found
     }

   }

   def deleteAllFiles ={
       ReportDirectory.deleteAllFiles()

       [files:ReportDirectory.listFiles()] //<-- return the remaining files, if any.
   }


}

A few comments about this solution…

-this doesn’t address MIME types so the browser won’t be able to figure out what kind of binary data is coming over the wire.

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