Viewing a PDF from the database

Question

Ok I am now finally down to the last thing that I need to get working on my program, at least for the time being. I am still doing research trying to find out how to do it but so far it has been unsuccessful, I am trying to make it so that the user can select a file on the database and then display that file in PDF form (the file is already in PDF) and then once it is displayed they can do whatever with it. I've already got the selecting the file taken care of now I'm just trying to figure out how to get the selected file to display on the screen.

Answer 1

is there a way to download the file to a temp folder on the app server and then display it from thereIn order to write your file from the Database Server (DS) to the Application Server (AS) you will have either have the DS and AS be the same server or you will have a shared drive that is accessible from both servers. I personally like the use of shared drives. The reason for this is that the RDMBS can only read/write to the file system of the DS; conversly, the AS can only read/write to the file system of the AS. With a shared drive (Mount Point) the AS and DS can write to the same directory.
So the question now is how to extract the file from the database to the filesystem. If you have access to My Oracle Support (MOS) look up *How to Write BLOBs Stored Inside the Database Out to Files [Doc ID: 330146.1]*. If you don't have access to MOS let me know and I'll post the code from this document. Basically you create a procedure that uses the DBMS_LOB package to read the file form your table in chunks and then writes these chunks of the file to the file system using the UTL_FILE package. When you write the file to the file system, you write it to the shared drive. The shared drive must be accessable by the AS processes on the AS. Then in your form you could server the file to the user with a simple WEB.SHOW_DOCUMENT() call. The file will be delivered to the user via the Browser and the user will have the choice of saving or viewing the file. You will need to work with your DS and AS admins to set things up on your servers. I also recommend you built a process on the AS that will routinely delete the files in this shared drive to prevent accidently serving up an old copy of a file and to eliminate stale files on the shared drive.
Hope this helps,
Craig B-)
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