PDF files not in context route

Question

Hi,
I have several pdf files that I would like to make avaiable over the web. However, I don't want anyone to be able to see them by guessing the URL.
Therefore I would like the files to be stored (on the web-server), but not in the context root of the URL.
Does anyone know how these can be displayed upon clicking a link. e.g.
pdf file
I've seen comments in other posting about needing another servlet that outputs the pdf. But i'm not quite sure where to begin!
Can anyone help? Or is there a much better/easier way?
Thanks

Answer 1

Yes doing this with a servlet surely works.
Have a servlet which accepts a single request parameter filename and outputs that file. The service method of the servlet can be like this.
public void service(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException, ServletException {
if (request.getParameter("fileName") != null) {
String fileName = request.getParameter("fileName");
String filePath = "folder-path/" + fileName;
try {
File file = new File(filePath);
FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream(file);
ServletOutputStream os = response.getOutputStream();
response.setContentType("application/pdf");
response.addHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=" + fileName);
int c;
while ((c = is.read()) != -1) {
os.write(c);
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("Error downloading file.");
In the above code replace folder-path with the absolute path of the folder where the pdf files are kept.
For a pdf file xyz.pdf call the above servlet with the url
http://server/path-to-servlet?fileName=xyz.pdf
Hope this helps