Spring MVC Multiple File Upload example

In this simple tutorial we will see how to implement multiple file upload in a Spring 3 MVC based application. The requirement is simple. We have a form which displays file input component. User selects a file and upload it. Also its possible to add more file input components using Add button. Once the files are selected and uploaded, the file names are displayed on success page.

1. Maven Dependencies / Required JAR files

If you using Maven in your project for dependency management, you’ll need to add dependencies for Apache Common File upload and Apache Common IO libraries. The spring’s CommonsMultipartResolver class internal uses these library to handle uploaded content. Add following dependencies in your maven based project to add File upload feature.

<dependencies>
   <!-- Spring 3 MVC  -->
   <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
      <version>3.1.2.RELEASE</version>
   </dependency>
   <!-- Apache Commons file upload  -->
   <dependency>
      <groupId>commons-fileupload</groupId>
      <artifactId>commons-fileupload</artifactId>
      <version>1.2.2</version>
   </dependency>
   <!-- Apache Commons IO -->
   <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
      <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
      <version>1.3.2</version>
   </dependency>
   <!-- JSTL for c: tag -->
   <dependency>
      <groupId>jstl</groupId>
      <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
      <version>1.2</version>
   </dependency>
</dependencies>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

If you have a simple web application, add following JAR files in WEB-INF/lib folder. You can download all these JARs with source code at the end of this tutorial.

2. Model – Form Object

Create a Java bean which acts as Model/Form object for our Spring application. This bean contains a List of org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile objects. Spring framework provides a useful class MultipartFile which can be used to fetch the file content of uploaded file. Apart from its content, the MultipartFile object also gives you other useful information such as filename, file size etc.

FileUploadForm.java

package net.viralpatel.spring3.form;

import java.util.List;

import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

public class FileUploadForm {

    private List < MultipartFile > files;

    //Getter and setter methods
}
Code language: Java (java)

3. Controller – Spring Controller

Create a Spring 3 MVC based controller which handles file upload. There are two methods in this controller:

displayForm – Is a used to show input form to user. It simply forwards to the page file_upload_form.jsp
save – Fetches the form using @ModelAttribute annotation and get the File content from it. It creates a list of filenames of files being uploaded and pass this list to success page.

FileUploadController.java

package net.viralpatel.spring3.controller;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import net.viralpatel.spring3.form.FileUploadForm;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ModelAttribute;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

@Controller
public class FileUploadController {
 
 @RequestMapping(value = "/show", method = RequestMethod.GET)
 public String displayForm() {
  return "file_upload_form";
 }
 
 @RequestMapping(value = "/save", method = RequestMethod.POST)
 public String save(
   @ModelAttribute("uploadForm") FileUploadForm uploadForm,
     Model map) {
  
  List<MultipartFile> files = uploadForm.getFiles();

  List<String> fileNames = new ArrayList<String>();
  
  if(null != files && files.size() > 0) {
   for (MultipartFile multipartFile : files) {

    String fileName = multipartFile.getOriginalFilename();
    fileNames.add(fileName);
    //Handle file content - multipartFile.getInputStream()

   }
  }
  
  map.addAttribute("files", fileNames);
  return "file_upload_success";
 }
}
Code language: Java (java)

4. View – JSP views

Now create the view pages for this application. We will need two JSPs, one to display file upload form and another to show result on successful upload. The file_upload_form.jsp displays a form with file input. Apart from this we have added small jquery snippet onclick of Add button. This will add a new file input component at the end of form. This allows user to upload as many files as they want (subjected to file size limit ofcourse). Note that we have set enctype=”multipart/form-data” attribute of our <form> tag.

file_upload_form.jsp

<%@taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" prefix="form"%>
<html>
<head>
 <title>Spring MVC Multiple File Upload</title>
<script 
src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function() {
 //add more file components if Add is clicked
 $('#addFile').click(function() {
  var fileIndex = $('#fileTable tr').children().length - 1;
  $('#fileTable').append(
    '<tr><td>'+
    ' <input type="file" name="files['+ fileIndex +']" />'+
    '</td></tr>');
 });
 
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Spring Multiple File Upload example</h1>

<form:form method="post" action="save.html" 
  modelAttribute="uploadForm" enctype="multipart/form-data">

 <p>Select files to upload. Press Add button to add more file inputs.</p>

 <input id="addFile" type="button" value="Add File" />
 <table id="fileTable">
  <tr>
   <td><input name="files[0]" type="file" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td><input name="files[1]" type="file" /></td>
  </tr>
 </table>
 <br/><input type="submit" value="Upload" />
</form:form>
</body>
</html>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Note that we defined the file input name as files[0], files[1] etc. This will map the submitted files to the List object correctly. I would suggest you to go through this tutorial to understand how Spring maps multiple entries from form to bean: Multiple Row Form Submit using List of Beans Second view page is to display filename of uploaded file. It simply loops through filename list and display the names.

file_upload_success.jsp

<%@taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>
<html>
<head>
 <title>Spring MVC Multiple File Upload</title>
</head>
<body>
 <h1>Spring Multiple File Upload example</h1>
 <p>Following files are uploaded successfully.</p>
 <ol>
  <c:forEach items="${files}" var="file">
   <li>${file}</li>
  </c:forEach>
 </ol>
</body>
</html>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

5. Spring Configuration

In Spring configuration (spring-servlet.xml) we define several important configurations. Note how we defined bean multipartResolver. This will make sure Spring handles the file upload correctly using CommonsMultipartResolver class.

spring-servlet.xml

<?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:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
 xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd">

 <context:annotation-config />
 <context:component-scan base-package="net.viralpatel.spring3.controller"/>
 
 <bean id="multipartResolver"
  class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartResolver"/>

  <bean id="jspViewResolver"
 class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
  <property name="viewClass"
   value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView" />
  <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/jsp/" />
  <property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
  </bean>
</beans>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

6. Output

Execute the project in Eclipse. Open following URL in browser to see file upload form.

URL: http://localhost:8080/Spring3MVC_Multiple_File_Upload_example/show.html

Select files through file dialog and press Upload button to upload. Following page will displayed with list of files being uploaded.

We have added a small JavaScript snippet for Add button. This will add more file upload components to the page. Use this if you want to upload more files.

Download Source Code

SpringMVC_Multi_File_Upload_example.zip (3.6 MB)

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View Comments

Yogesh says:

November 22, 2012 at 10:21 am

Hi Viral! A great tutorial! How do we restrict the file types being uploaded. Use case being i want the user to upload only .pdf file or .xls files.

Greg says:

January 25, 2013 at 6:41 pm

You can use a validator, first register your validator

[code language="java"]
@InitBinder("uploadItem")
void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
binder.setValidator(new UploadValidator ());
}

[/code]

Then you apply that validator to uploaded file
[code language="java"]

public String uploadPluginAction(@Valid @ModelAttribute("uploadItem") FileUploadBean uploadItem, BindingResult result, ModelMap modelMap,
HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
{
logger.trace("Upload Handler");
// Check for validation error
if (result.hasErrors())
{

return "/add";
}
}
[/code]

[code language="java"]
mport java.io.IOException;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
import org.springframework.validation.Errors;
import org.springframework.validation.Validator;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

public class UploadValidator implements Validator {
private static transient Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(UploadValidator.class);
// Content types the user can upload
private static final String[] ACCEPTED_CONTENT_TYPES = new String[] {
"application/pdf",
"application/doc",
"application/msword",
"application/rtf",
"text/richtext" ,
"text/rtf" ,
"text/plain" ,
"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" ,
"application/vnd.sun.xml.writer" ,
"application/x-soffice" ,
};

private static final String[] ACCEPTED_EXTENSIONS = new String[] {
"doc",
"pdf",
"docx",
"rtf",
"txt",
};

@Override
public boolean supports(Class<?> clazz) {
return FileUploadBean.class.equals(clazz);
}

/**
* Validate our uploaded bean
*/
@Override
public void validate(Object obj, Errors errors) {
FileUploadBean uploadItem = (FileUploadBean) obj;
MultipartFile file = uploadItem.getFile();
try {
if(file == null || file.getBytes().length == 0){
errors.reject("error.upload.null", "File name can't be empty");
return;
}
} catch (IOException e) {
logger.error(e.getMessage());
}

// Check content type
boolean acceptableContentType = false;
String incomingContentType = file.getContentType();
logger.info("FileName = "+file.getName());
logger.info("incomingContentType = "+incomingContentType);
// This related to bug when on Vista and using Firefox content type is 'application/octet-stream'
// Instead of one of the allowed ones
if("application/octet-stream".equalsIgnoreCase(incomingContentType)){
int index = file.getOriginalFilename().lastIndexOf('.');
String incomingExtension = file.getOriginalFilename().substring(index + 1);
for(String extendsion : ACCEPTED_EXTENSIONS){
if(extendsion.equalsIgnoreCase(incomingExtension)){
acceptableContentType = true;
break;
}
}
}else{
for(String contentType : ACCEPTED_CONTENT_TYPES){
logger.debug("Comparing " + incomingContentType +" to "+ contentType);
if(contentType.equalsIgnoreCase(incomingContentType)){
acceptableContentType = true;
break;
}
}
}
if(!acceptableContentType){
errors.reject("error.upload.contenttype", "Please upload a file with one of the following file types; .doc, .docx, .txt, .pdf, .rtf .");
}
}
}

[/code]

I hope this helps

Majid says:

September 18, 2013 at 5:48 pm

Hi Creg,

In your reply said :
First register your validator, then apply, can you please show us where to register and where to apply, and where to create the validator, do we need a configuration somewhere ?

Thanks

Auton says:

December 15, 2012 at 7:28 pm

Hello there, nice tutorial. Just one warn, when I run your example after download it from here and I get the following exception stacktrace:
[code language="java"]
org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletException: Request processing failed; nested exception is org.springframework.validation.BindException: org.springframework.validation.BeanPropertyBindingResult: 1 errors
Field error in object 'uploadForm' on field 'files[0]': rejected value [[org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartFile@21e4d4, org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartFile@1363716]]; codes [typeMismatch.uploadForm.files[0],typeMismatch.uploadForm.files,typeMismatch.files[0],typeMismatch.files,typeMismatch]; arguments [org.springframework.context.support.DefaultMessageSourceResolvable: codes [uploadForm.files[0],files[0]]; arguments []; default message [files[0]]]; default message [Failed to convert property value of type 'java.util.LinkedList' to required type 'org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile' for property 'files[0]'; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot convert value of type [java.util.LinkedList] to required type [org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile] for property 'files[0]': no matching editors or conversion strategy found]
[/code]

You shoul change the line of code:
[code language="java"]
var fileIndex = $('#fileTable tr').children().length - 1;
[/code]
for this one:
[code language="java"]
var fileIndex = $('#fileTable tr').children().length;
[/code]
doing so, it wont duplicate the same last index when select the "Add File" button

Regards!
Cagatay says:

January 4, 2013 at 2:51 pm

Very good tutorial, thanks.
argan says:

January 5, 2013 at 11:59 am

this is very good to learn java, keep exist with this site such we can to be java expert hahahahaha., thanks viralpatel.,
Hariharan says:

January 14, 2013 at 3:22 pm

Thanks for this example. Its easy to understand, I have downloaded the source code, but i am not able to run the project.

http://localhost:9090/SpringMVC_Multi_File_Upload_example/

i am getting 404 error. what is missing?.
Aks13 says:

January 22, 2013 at 1:44 am

Spring Multiple File Upload example
Following files are uploaded successfully.

CreateDB.sql

Where is place uploaded files ?
warika says:

January 22, 2013 at 10:09 pm

I want to using ajax(not submit form), read the selected file in input file. You can help me...

Asier says:

July 2, 2013 at 9:52 pm

Hi,

I need to send a similar form but using AJAX. Any solution?

Thanks a lot!

rudi says:

February 3, 2013 at 4:08 pm

hai all
can you help me now?
For some of my homework (one of many problems)
"how to uploading file xls with asp mvc 3 to database? "
share with me please, simple sample
programming ASP MVC3
Database SQL SERVER
example databases name_DB = db_school, name_table = tbl_student, Field = - id, name
Sid says:

February 4, 2013 at 10:29 am

Thanks for detailed explanation. Before visiting to this page I didn't knew anything about file upload, Now i can write file upload code easily..

Regards
sid
Sudipto Saha says:

February 20, 2013 at 3:40 pm

I was not sure where the files were uploaded...
So,I just got your code a little modified with d help of some other example:
And here is the full running code:
1.Just Create D:\Test\Upload directory structure or whatever.
2.Copy this code to FileUploadController.java
[code language="java"]
package net.viralpatel.spring3.controller;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import net.viralpatel.spring3.form.FileUploadForm;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ModelAttribute;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartFile;

@Controller
public class FileUploadController {
private String saveDirectory = "D:/Test/Upload/"; //Here I Added

@RequestMapping(value = "/show", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String displayForm() {
return "file_upload_form";
}

@RequestMapping(value = "/save", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String save(
@ModelAttribute("uploadForm") FileUploadForm uploadForm,
Model map) throws IllegalStateException, IOException {

List<MultipartFile> files = uploadForm.getFiles();

List<String> fileNames = new ArrayList<String>();

if(null != files && files.size() > 0) {
for (MultipartFile multipartFile : files) {

String fileName = multipartFile.getOriginalFilename();
fileNames.add(fileName);
//Handle file content - multipartFile.getInputStream()
multipartFile.transferTo(new File(saveDirectory + multipartFile.getOriginalFilename())); //Here I Added
}
}

map.addAttribute("files", fileNames);
return "file_upload_success";
}
}

[/code]

SATHYA says:

May 30, 2013 at 4:29 pm

when I copied your updated controller, the file is getting uploaded into the location. But, I'm getting this error. Please clarify.

java.io.IOException: Destination file [C:\Temp\Upload] already exists and could not be deleted
org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.CommonsMultipartFile.transferTo(CommonsMultipartFile.java:130)

SATHYA says:

May 30, 2013 at 5:28 pm

I got the solution for the above exception. I just added a condition like this and added the files in the last step. Please see the code below:
[code language="java"]
if(null != files && files.size() > 0) {
for (MultipartFile multipartFile : files) {

String fileName = multipartFile.getOriginalFilename();
if(!"".equalsIgnoreCase(fileName)){
//Handle file content - multipartFile.getInputStream()
multipartFile.transferTo(new File(saveDirectory + fileName)); //Here I Added
fileNames.add(fileName);
}
}
[/code]

Govardhan says:

July 15, 2014 at 12:19 pm

Hi Sathya,

How to get a path and path will store mysqldatabase with the help of hibernate.please send me a code.Thanks@govardhan
Noorus Khan says:

November 25, 2014 at 12:09 am

thankyou soo muucch for ur valuable and timesaving concept :)
Pawan Soni says:

August 5, 2015 at 11:56 am

Thanks much Sathya :)

Suraj says:

September 17, 2013 at 3:22 pm

This was helpful :)

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