getRealPath()

[Bob Moranski]

Hi, I have a question about ServletContext's getRealPath(String) method. What is its parameter? And what does this method return?
Thanks.

[Frank Carver]

The method returns the path to a file, given the end part of it. This is probably best illustrated with an example:
Imagine a web server (or web application) serving files from c:\files\fred which has a servlet published as "showme" designed to show a Java source file with syntax coloring.
A request comes in to the server for the URL /servlets/showme?file=projects/source/Example.java
Rather than hard code the "c:\files\fred" into the servlet (which would be very un-portable) the servlet can call
String path = context.getRealPath(req.getParameter("file"));
which should return:
c:\files\fred\projects\source\Example.java
ready for opening with a FileReader, or whatever.

[Bob Moranski]

Thank you very much Frank!!