can we make response from a child thread of a servlet?

[Neeraj Dhiman]

can we make response from a child thread of a servlet ?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Neeraj,
Welcome to CodeRanch! You can write to the HttpSession from a child thread, but you can't send a response back to the user.

[Tim Moores]

Maybe asynchronous servlets fit the bill: http://weblogs.java.net/blog/mode/archive/2008/12/asynchronous_su.html

[Neeraj Dhiman]

Thanks Tim and Jeanne,
My application supports servlet 2.5 API so asynchronous servlets .... :-(
is there any another method to do this?

[Bear Bibeault]

You haven't really explained what "this" is yet.

[Neeraj Dhiman]

i am trying to make a thread in servlet that read a file and write on ServletOutputStream.
when i am writing on ServletOutputStream and it give an exception like this

java.lang.NullPointerException
[12/21/11 10:30:00:531 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTServletResponse.setHeader(SRTServletResponse.java:817)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:531 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTServletResponse.addLocaleHeader(SRTServletResponse.java:301)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:547 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTServletResponse.commit(SRTServletResponse.java:262)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:547 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTServletResponse.alertFirstFlush(SRTServletResponse.java:211)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:547 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.BufferedServletOutputStream.flushBytes(BufferedServletOutputStream.java:350)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:547 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.BufferedServletOutputStream.write(BufferedServletOutputStream.java:307)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:547 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at ggs.smiles.servlet.DownloadThread.run(DownloadThread.java:123)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:547 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:568)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R java.lang.IllegalStateException: no Content-Type was specified
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.http.HttpResponse.writeHeaders(HttpResponse.java:285)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.http.ResponseStream.writeHeaders(ResponseStream.java:238)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.http.ResponseStream.flushBuffer(ResponseStream.java:207)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.http.ResponseStream.flush(ResponseStream.java:301)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.io.WriteStream.flush(WriteStream.java:139)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.http.HttpConnection.flush(HttpConnection.java:379)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srp.SRPConnection.flush(SRPConnection.java:242)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTOutputStream.flush(SRTOutputStream.java:46)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.BufferedServletOutputStream.flushBytes(BufferedServletOutputStream.java:361)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.BufferedServletOutputStream.flush(BufferedServletOutputStream.java:334)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.BufferedServletOutputStream.finish(BufferedServletOutputStream.java:167)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.BufferedServletOutputStream.close(BufferedServletOutputStream.java:420)
[12/21/11 10:30:00:562 IST] a16e830 SystemErr R at ggs.smiles.servlet.DownloadThread.run(DownloadThread.java:181)

All header and content type are set on servlet and i am passing response object to thread.

I know,its a bad approch to do, like this. but how to make response from servlet's child thread. is there any consistance approch ?

[Bear Bibeault]

But why?

[Neeraj Dhiman]

Because i have a problem with downloading large files. so i want to create a thread which run in the background write on the stream and make a response.
is it possible or not?

[Tim Moores]

"a problem" is what, exactly? There's no principal problem with streaming large files in a servlet.

[Neeraj Dhiman]

ok. let me explain the exact problem.
when i try to download large image sometime the image get corrupt (95 % code works).
my downloading code is:

// setting header and content type depends upon type of files

ServletOutputStream out = response.getOutputStream();
FileInputStream in = null;
stream = new FileInputStream(f);
int i=0;
response.addHeader("Cache-Control", "no-transform, max-age=0");
while ((in != null) && (i = in.read()) != -1){
out.write(iRead);
i++;
}
the code will run on mozila and chrome without any exception. but in IE an exception throws i.e.


java.net.SocketException: Connection reset by peer: socket write error
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at java.net.SocketOutputStream.socketWrite0(Native Method)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at java.net.SocketOutputStream.socketWrite(SocketOutputStream.java:112)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at java.net.SocketOutputStream.write(SocketOutputStream.java:156)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.io.Stream.write(Stream.java:26)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.io.WriteStream.flushMyBuf(WriteStream.java:145)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.io.WriteStream.flush(WriteStream.java:137)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.http.ResponseStream.flush(ResponseStream.java:303)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.io.WriteStream.flush(WriteStream.java:139)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.http.HttpConnection.flush(HttpConnection.java:379)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srp.SRPConnection.flush(SRPConnection.java:242)
[12/21/11 17:14:53:219 IST] 70ac65bd SystemErr R at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.SRTOutputStream.flush(SRTOutputStream.java:46)

even this exeption the code runs well and image is downloaded.

The problem is corupted image.am i missing something or doing somethng wrong? Please help
i was thinking thead may solve this problem.

[Bear Bibeault]

Neeraj Dhiman wrote:i was thinking thead may solve this problem.

Unlikely. What makes you think that?

[Neeraj Dhiman]

file is large. it takes time when there is load on server, and during the process connection is resseted. any how the exception is thrown after writing certain bytes on output stream.
so it may be the case connection may not be resseted, resulting corrupt image problem, May be i am wrong. so i want to test it by running as a background process.

Hey friends, if you have any idea about this problem please help its urgent. thank you in Advance.