readLine() method return -1

[Neeraj Vij]

Hi Everybody,

I am submitting a form in jsp file to a servlet :-

Partial jsp file contents are :-

<form name="searchexcel" method="POST" ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data">
<input type=file name="filename" >
</form>

partial code in servlet as follows :-

ServletInputStream sis = request.getInputStream();
byte[] b = new byte[1024];
int x=0;
while((x=sis.readLine(b,0,1024))>-1) {

*****
}


readline method is returning -1 at first attempt itself. It will be a great help if Can any one inform what could be the possible reasons for it.

Regards,
Neeraj.

[William Brogden]

With servlet response you have a choice - you can either read the body of the request with request.getInputStream() -OR- you can use the response getParameter method to get form parameters. This is because the servlet engine has to read the request body input stream in order to find and parse the form parameters for you. The return of -1 indicates that the InputStream is already at the end of data.
The JavaDocs for ServletRequest.getParameter() discusses this.
Bill

[Adeel Ansari]

as your form type is multipart/form-data. you will get null, if use request.getParameter(String str).

[Julian Kennedy]

You might be interested in the MultipartRequest and associated classes available in the O'Reilly Servlets package.

Jules