How can I get an Input Stream from HSSFWorkbook Object

Question

I want my web application users to download some data as an Excel file.

I have the next function to send an Input Stream in the response object.

public static void sendFile(InputStream is, HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException {
        BufferedInputStream in = null;
        try {
            int count;
            byte[] buffer = new byte[BUFFER_SIZE];
            in = new BufferedInputStream(is);
            ServletOutputStream out = response.getOutputStream();
            while(-1 != (count = in.read(buffer)))
                out.write(buffer, 0, count);
            out.flush();            
        }   catch (IOException ioe) { 
            System.err.println("IOException in Download::sendFile"); 
            ioe.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            if (in != null) {
                try { in.close(); 
                } catch (IOException ioe) { ioe.printStackTrace(); }
            }   
        }
    }

I would like to transform my HSSFWorkbook Object to an input stream and pass it to the previous method.

public InputStream generateApplicationsExcel() {
    HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook();
    // Populate the excel object
    return null; // TODO. return the wb as InputStream 
}

http://poi.apache.org/apidocs/org/apache/poi/hssf/usermodel/HSSFWorkbook.html

Answer 1

My solution is to transfer the HSSFWorkbook to ByteArrayOutputStream first, and then create an InputStream from ByteArrayOutputStream :

        HSSFWorkbook wb = ...

        // Fill an empty output stream
        ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        wb.write(baos);

        // Close the document
        wb.close();

        // Create the input stream (do not forget to close the inputStream after use)
        InputStream is = new ByteArrayInputStream(baos.toByteArray());

Answer 2

you can create a InputStream from a object.

public InputStream generateApplicationsExcel() {
    HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook();
    // Populate a InputStream from the excel object
    return new ByteArrayInputStream(excelFile.getBytes());
}