Java Web Application - File Read

Question

This question is related to " Java Web Application - File Upload ".
Is it possible for a Web Application to read a file from the host file system?
My guess is that for security reasons the answer is no - but I guess it should be possible for it to read files in directories below the root of the application.
If so, could someone supply an example code snippet.
Thanks

Answer 1

I'm using the Apache Wicket web-framework, deployed on the Glassfish 2 web-app container, and this snippet works fine for me:

//Read file content
FileInputStream in = new FileInputStream(new File("absolute path"));
byte[] bt = new byte[(int) file.length()];
in.read(bt);
in.close();
return bt;

Could however be related to the way the web application server is setup, so your mileage may vary..