Retrieve images from DB and attach them to email through javamail

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to use javamail to send emails containing text and images (HTML mail), if I use a physical file in my computer as the image source and use FileDataSource everything works just fine. The problem is that the images in my app are stored into a DB (I'm using MySQL, java struts & DAO), so in order to retrieve & display them I use a jsp that returns a byte array as shown in the example bellow
<img  src='getImage.jsp?itemId=<bean:write name="item" property="itemId"/>&heigth=180&width=140&imageIndex=1'/>getImage.jsp reads the image from the DB for the specified item and returns an image of size "heigth*witdh", this works fine when invoked from any jsp or java action class, but I can't get it to work to insert an image into an email as attachment
I've tried to use ByteArrayDataSource and the mail is sent correctly and can be read but the image won't show
bds = new ByteArrayDataSource("/getImage.jsp?itemId="+itemId+"&heigth=180&width=140&imageIndex=1", "image/jpeg");
imageMime.setDataHandler(new DataHandler(bds));
imageMime.setHeader("Content-ID", "<\" + itemId + \">"); // backslashes aren't there in the real code, but if I remove them '+ itemId +' won't show
mailParts.addBodyPart(imageMime);I've also tried with URLDataSource but can't get it to work either, can somebody plz point me in the right direction?
thanks in advance
Edited by: informacionCubica on Jun 8, 2009 3:46 PM

Answer 1

Hello bshannon,
Thanks for your answer, I tried your suggestion but when I use URLDataSource I get the error message http 500 (in my original post I said that using URLDataSource the mail was sent but without the image... my mistake, I was getting this same error). I traced the error and I found that it is caused by a null pointer exception... let me explain
This is the code for the jsp that returns the image:
4        <jsp:useBean id="coverImage" class="com.mqm.struts.getImageAction" scope="session" />
5       <%
6           // Desired size of the image to return
7           int heigth = Integer.parseInt(request.getParameter("heigth"));
8          int width = Integer.parseInt(request.getParameter("width"));
9          
10          // Each item can have up to 6 images (ordered by id), this indicates wich of one we have to return
11            int imageIndex = Integer.parseInt(request.getParameter("imageIndex"));
12        byte[] imgData = coverImage.getItemImageAction(request.getParameter("itemId"), request,heigth, width, imageIndex );
13        response.setContentType("image/jpeg");
14        OutputStream o = response.getOutputStream();
15         o.write(imgData);
16         o.flush();
17         out.clearBuffer();
18         o.close();
        %> getImageAction is my DAO class that actually reads the image data from the DB, when I use this 'getImage.jsp' inside any other jsp in the app it works, but when used as described in the first post the request parameter in the line 12 doesn't have the session info, apparently creates a new session or something and since I use information in the session to create the DAO factory I can't connect to the DB and get this error..
pls tell me if I explained my self or I'm just talking non sense
regards