Retrieve Blob(pdf) from database using JPA, Jersey

Question

I have a JSP page using JPA-REST in back-end, I've managed to insert a blob into the database. Now I want to be able to retrieve / GET the blob from the database, but I can't seem to find any examples of how to do this via Jersey instead of using servlets(I'm pretty new to creating my own REST services).

This is the code i used to Insert blobs to the database:

@POST
@Path("upload/{id}")
@Consumes({"application/x-www-form-urlencoded", "multipart/form-data"})
public void addBlob(@PathParam("id") Integer id, @FormDataParam("file") InputStream uploadedInputStream) throws IOException {
    ClientCaseDoc entityToMerge = find(id);
    try {
        ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        int read = 0;
        byte[] bytes = new byte[1024];
        while ((read = uploadedInputStream.read(bytes)) != -1) {
            out.write(bytes, 0, read);
        }
        entityToMerge.setDocument(out.toByteArray());
        super.edit(entityToMerge);
    }
    catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Is there any similar way of Retrieving a blob from the database? Or do I have to use servlets?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

This has already been answered but to help with the wider question;

I have an entity;

@Entity
public class BlobEntity {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
    private Long id;

    @Column(name = "NAME")
    private String name;

    @Lob
    @Column(name="DATA", length=100000)
    private byte[] data;

A JPA repository

@Repository
public interface BlobEntityRepository extends CrudRepository<BlobEntity, Long> {
}

And a test that reads a word doc and retrieves it from the database

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(locations = "classpath:applicationContext-test.xml")
public class BlobEntitytRepositoryTest extends AbstractTest {

    @Autowired
    private BlobEntityRepository repository;

    @Test
    @Transactional
    public void test1() throws IOException {

        InputStream inputStream = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/HelloGreg.docx");
        byte[] byteArray = IOUtils.toByteArray(inputStream);

        BlobEntity blobEntity = new BlobEntity();
        blobEntity.setName("test");
        blobEntity.setData(byteArray);

        repository.save(blobEntity);

        assertEquals(1, repository.count());

        BlobEntity entity = repository.findOne(1l);
        assertNotNull(entity);

        FileOutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream(new File("testOut.docx"));
        IOUtils.write(entity.getData(), outputStream);
    }

}

Config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:jdbc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/jdbc"
    xmlns:jpa="http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa" xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xmlns:cache="http://www.springframework.org/schema/cache"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/jdbc http://www.springframework.org/schema/jdbc/spring-jdbc.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa/spring-jpa.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/cache http://www.springframework.org/schema/cache/spring-cache.xsd">

    <context:component-scan base-package="com.greg" />
    <tx:annotation-driven />
    <jpa:repositories base-package="com.greg" />

    <bean id="dataSource"
        class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
        <property name="driverClassName" value="org.h2.Driver" />
        <property name="url" value="jdbc:h2:file:~/data/jpa-test" />
        <property name="username" value="sa" />
        <property name="password" value="" />
    </bean>

    <bean id="entityManagerFactory"
        class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean">
        <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
        <property name="packagesToScan" value="com.greg" />
        <property name="jpaVendorAdapter">
            <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.HibernateJpaVendorAdapter" />
        </property>
        <property name="jpaProperties">
            <props>
                <prop key="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto">create</prop>
                <prop key="hibernate.show_sql">false</prop>
                <prop key="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.H2Dialect</prop>
            </props>
        </property>
    </bean>

    <bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager">
        <property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="entityManagerFactory" />
    </bean>

</beans>

Answer 2

Is there any similar way of Retrieving a blob from the database? Or do I have to use servlets?

While not mentioned in the question, I'm taking this to be about returning a BLOB via Jersey rather than using Servlets. OP please correct me in the comments if I am wrong. If I'm correct you may wish to update your question to mention Jersey.

This question I think is a duplicate of Input and Output binary streams using JERSEY?. However the comments appear to show some confusion as to how to implement it in the OPs case. As you are loading the PDFs in the domain model (if that is a good thing I'll let other people argue over) streaming is not needed. All you need to do is create a Response with the entity set as the byte array returned by the data layer.

@Path("upload/{id}")
@GET
public Response getPDF(@PathParam("id") Integer id) throws Exception {
    ClientCaseDoc entity = find(id);
    return Response
            .ok()
            .type("application/pdf")
            .entity(entity.getDocument()) // Assumes document is a byte array in the domain object.
            .build();
}