Traverse Deployed Folder from the Web Application

Question

Is it possible for a web application to access its own deployed folder. I am using JSF 1.2 framework and i need to access some of the files which i have it in the deployed directory.

Does JSF has any in built method to give us the deployed folder and the files in it?

Answer 1

Use ExternalContext.getResourcePaths("/"). In a servlet container, this will delegate to ServletContext.getResoucePaths(String). As the documentation notes:

For example, for a web application containing:

/welcome.html
/catalog/index.html
/catalog/products.html
/catalog/offers/books.html
/catalog/offers/music.html
/customer/login.jsp
/WEB-INF/web.xml
/WEB-INF/classes/com.acme.OrderServlet.class
/WEB-INF/lib/catalog.jar!/META-INF/resources/catalog/moreOffers/books.html

getResourcePaths("/") would return {"/welcome.html", "/catalog/", "/customer/", "/WEB-INF/"}, and getResourcePaths("/catalog/") would return {"/catalog/index.html", "/catalog/products.html", "/catalog/offers/", "/catalog/moreOffers/"}.

For portable code, do not assume you can access resources via the file system:

This method (getResource(String)) allows the servlet container to make a resource available to servlets from any source. Resources can be located on a local or remote file system, in a database, or in a .war file.