Getting error while opening pdf on server

Question

Dear All,
I am working on jdeveloper 11.1.1.4.0.
I have a use case where on click of link , generating a dynamic pdf. The pdf i am arranging with the help of itext through backing bean. It is generating as well downloading the pdf.I have used filedownloadlistner to call the generate and download pdf methods.
On integrated weblogic server the pdf is working fine, but when i deploy on server while opening pdf getting error :
*"Adobe Reader could not open 'test.pdf' beacause it is either not a supported file type*
*or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and*
*wasn't correctly decoded)."*
I am not able to get the root cause for the problem. The sample code to generate and download pdf is :
// Generate PDF
private void generatePDFFile(FacesContext facesContext,
java.io.OutputStream outputStream) {
try {
System.out.println("In Generate PDF................");
Document document = new Document(PageSize.A4);
PdfWriter.getInstance(document, new FileOutputStream(FILE));
document.open();
addMetaData(document);
addTitlePage(document);
document.close();
System.out.println("End of PDF......................");
facesContext = facesContext.getCurrentInstance();
ServletContext context = (ServletContext)facesContext.getExternalContext().getContext();
System.out.println(context.getRealPath("/"));
String FILE = "test.pdf";
File file = new File(FILE);
FileInputStream fdownload;
//BufferedInputStream bis;
byte[] b;
System.out.println(file.getCanonicalPath());
System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath());
fdownload = new FileInputStream(file);
int n;
while ((n = fdownload.available()) > 0) {
b = new byte[n];
int result = fdownload.read(b);
outputStream.write(b, 0, b.length);
if (result == -1)
break;
outputStream.flush();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
Download PDF
private void downloadPDF(FacesContext facesContext, java.io.OutputStream outputStream) {
try {
facesContext = facesContext.getCurrentInstance();
ServletContext context = (ServletContext)facesContext.getExternalContext().getContext();
ExternalContext ctx = facesContext.getExternalContext();
HttpServletResponse res = (HttpServletResponse)ctx.getResponse();
res.setContentType("application/pdf");
outputStream = res.getOutputStream();
System.out.println(context.getRealPath("/"));
File file = new File(FILE); // FILE = 'test.pdf'
FileInputStream fdownload;
// BufferedInputStream bis;
byte[] b;
fdownload = new FileInputStream(file);
//bis = new BufferedInputStream (new FileInputStream(file));
int n;
while ((n = fdownload.available()) > 0) {
b = new byte[n];
int result = fdownload.read(b);
//outputStream.write(b, 0, b.length);
outputStream.write(b, 0, b.length);
if (result == -1)
break;
outputStream.flush();
outputStream.close();
fdownload.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks
Kanika

Answer 1

If the pdf file don't open on the server where you created them, they won't open on the client side either.
The code you are using should be refactored to use different file names for the generated files. In a multi user environment (which every web application is) you overwrite the file generated with each new request, even before the file is loaded by a client. This will corrupt the file a client is loading and you get the error you see.
Next I would look into org.apache.commons.io package (http://commons.apache.org/io/) which has utility classes which allows easy handling of streams without looping over the data.
Timo