Spring MVC - Access static resources from outside the application context

Question

I have a web application where each of the JSP should be linked to a help pdf file. The files are located outside the web container / application context, but are located within the same server.

I am trying to access them using the spring mvc resource tag but I am still unable to access the pdf file.

Any help is appreciated.

Here is the configuration In a windows env, files are located in C:\\workspace\\shared\\data\\help[all pdfs are here]

I created a jvm argument to access the files -

JVM Argument

-Dhelp.dir=/workspace/shared/data/help

spring mvc resource tag -

<mvc:resources  mapping="/help/*" location="file:/#{systemProperties.help.dir}/"/>

I get a 404 error while trying to access the pdf(s)

Glassfish / JDK 1.6

When I click on the Link, the URL generated is -

http://localhost:8080/workspace/shared/data/help/abc.pdf

My actual web application context is something like this -

http://localhost:8080/MyApp

Answer 1

You just need a small fix with SpEL syntax,

<mvc:resources  mapping="/help/*" location="file:#{systemProperties['help.dir']}"/>

and for JVM argument :

-Dhelp.dir=/workspace/shared/data/help/

with leading and trailing slashes to get it all work

see : http://wordgraphs.com/post/1751/Serving-a-resource-from-outside-the-context-root-in-Spring-MVC and Spring Expression Language (SpEL)