Images created on the fly

[n_ton]

Hi,

I have a web application that shows a list of products.
When a user selects an option in that list, a new
window pops up that displays a barcode image that is
created for them on the fly.

The application is deployed in Tomcat today, so the
application creates the image in a particular
directory and the page in the popped-up window just
references that newly created image. It all works
because Tomcat expands the war in a predictable
directory structure.

My question is, how would I accomplish this within
a JBoss deployment? It looks as though JBoss also
does some sort of war expansion. Can I write to
that directory structure?

Even so, it appears the expanded war directory is
dynamic because I see references to web001, web002,
etc. Is there another/better way to accomplish what
I'm after?

I can't use a servlet to create the image and direct
the byte stream back to the web application because
I actually need to create two different image formats.
One is for display, and the other is for the user to
be able to download for use in their applications.

The image they are downloading is actually the clincher
because I need to put it somewhere where I can put
a link to it for the user to download.

Suggestions?

Thanx in advance.

Norton

[adrian.brock]

From 2.4.4 you can create an unpacked war.
This is a directory structure that looks like a war,
make the directory something like myapp.war

JBoss just deploys it without copying.

Regards,
Adrian

[jules_gosnell]

IMHO, you should not be writing back into the unpacked app

1. The webcontainer may not even unpack, but run packed.
2. You may not have perms to write there.
3. what does it gain you ? (garbage collection I assume)

use File.createTempFile()
use File.deleteOnExit() (garbage collection)

Jules

[null_pointer]

I have a similar problem, In my case users can upload images, which is getting stored in the
"C:\JBoss-2.4.1_Tomcat-3.2.3\jboss\tmp\deploy\Default\app.ear\web1001\images" Dir.
But if i stop the server all the data is lost.
The other way round if i store the data outside the temp deploy dir. How to i give a link to the image.