How can I get path from af: inputFile or a uploadedFile

Question

Hi, there,
I am getting error messages while sending attachment.
I firstly tired getting the attachment from <af:inputFile> and attach it to the email. It failed. Then I put the file name directly into my code, still choose the same file from the <af:inputFile>, it failed again. However, from the code you can see, I can get system out println to print the file name, even the file content.
I realized that I might need the file path, but I don't konw how I do get the path, should I write code in the backing bean of uploadedFile or in the send() in the Application Module ? How can I get the path?
any advice is welcome and thank you very much!
The system.out.println result is
08/05/09 11:56:38 2javax.activation.FileDataSource@1674b36
08/05/09 11:56:38 2.1 jkljlj
08/05/09 11:56:38 2.2New Text Document.txt
But the error message still says :
nested exception is:
class javax.mail.MessagingException: IOException while sending message;
nested exception is:
java.io.FileNotFoundException: New Text Document.txt (The system cannot find the file specified)
Here is my code:
ViewObject issueView = getIssueView1();
Row x = issueView.getCurrentRow();
String fileName = "New Text Document.txt";
System.out.println("1 " + fileName);
System.out.println("1.5 " + x.getAttribute("attachmentName"));
// msg.setText(body);
MimeBodyPart mbp1 = new MimeBodyPart();
mbp1.setText(body);
Multipart mp = new MimeMultipart();
mp.addBodyPart(mbp1);
// String attachmentName = (String)x.getAttribute("attachmentName");
//if (attachmentName != null) {
MimeBodyPart mbp2 = new MimeBodyPart();
DataSource source = new FileDataSource(fileName);
System.out.println("2" + source);
System.out.println("2.1 " + x.getAttribute("attachment"));
mbp2.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(source));
//mbp2.setFileName(source.getName());
mbp2.setFileName(fileName);
System.out.println("2.2" + fileName);
mp.addBodyPart(mbp2);
msg.setContent(mp);
// send the message!
getDBTransaction().commit();
Transport.send(msg);
System.out.println("\nMail was sent successfully.");
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
}

Answer 1

I wish you and others like you would say what you are trying to do, not how you are trying to do it. That would save those who would like to help the trouble of figuring it out. However, I'm going to make a guess at what you are doing. Tell me if I'm right.
You are writing a page that lets a user construct an e-mail message. I assume that the page has fields like: addressee, subject, and message. It also has a field, defined as an <af:inputFile> component for getting a file to be added as an attachment to the e-mail.
You will want to look at forum posts and tutorials about how to upload a file. You will see that the "value" attribute of an <af:inputFile> will normally contain EL referencing a property of a backing bean which has the UploadedFile class. This class has methods for getting the filename, MIME content type, and an InputStream containing the data in the uploaded file. These pieces of information are all you need to add an attachment to an e-mail. You don't need the file's path, which is a good thing, since that information is not available to you.
I've never used Javamail, so I can't tell you exactly how to use it, but I do understand the basics of sending e-mail. What you are going to do is create a multi-part message. The first part will be the message itself. Subsequent parts are the attachments. Each attachment can have it's filename and MIME content type set. Then you read the file through it's InputStream and write it to the message content. If the file contains binary data, you will need to pass it through a filter that will encode it to the Base64 format - which represents your data as 7 bit bytes.
You will NOT be using the database connection or anything from the data controls to send an e-mail, unless you also need to save a copy to the database. The connection that is needed for e-mail is a connection to an SMTP service. Ask your e-mail administrator for some help with this.
You MIGHT want to write most of this code in your Model project as a business component. Then your backing bean would probably just pass the fields as parameters.