How to let user download the data in database to an excel sheet file from web application in Java/Struts?

Question

I want to generate a report which includes an excel sheet which is generated from the data from the database . I am using Apache POI HSSF for creating the excel sheet file in the model.

Now how to let the user download the file i have created ?

Answer 1

Just use a servlet. Feed response.getOutputStream() to POI HSSF to write the workbook to. Most important bit is the Content-Disposition response header. If you set it to attachment, then the browser will pop a Save As dialogue.

response.setContentType("application/vnd.ms-excel");
response.setHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=name.xls");
WritableWorkbook workBook = Workbook.createWorkbook(response.getOutputStream());
// ...

Then let the download URL point to that servlet, if necessary with some request parameters or path info.