java - send a file to client by file URL without download on the server

Question

In my web application I have a link which, when clicked, invokes an external web service to retrieve a download URL for a file.

I need to send back to client the file which is beyond this URL, instead of the download URL retrieved from the web service. If possible, I would also like to do it without having to download the file on my server beforehand.

I've found this question about a similar task, but which used PHP with the readfile() function. Is there a similar way to do this in Java 8?

Answer 1

If you doesn't even want to handle that file you should answer the request with a redirect (eg HTTP 301 or 302). If you want to handle the file you should read the file in a byte buffer and send it to the client which would make the transfer slower. Without seeing your implementation so far, this is my best suggest.