Hi,

With regards to my suggestion, I typically write these images to a directory 
that can be accessed through a standard http request or simple servlet. You can 
name these images something dynamic and not easily guessed. Maybe customer 
number + time stamp + .png, or user Id + timestamp + .png. Anyway, you get the 
idea. Return the image name/path to the client so they can request it either 
via standard http static resource request or via a servlet that extends 
HttpServlet. I tend to do the latter as it's just a simple Java servlet that 
handles the request for the download of resources. I do it this way because 
there is no need to use the power of Spring, JAX-WS, JAXB, CXF to return a 
simple image to a client. I can offload that work to a simple process and free 
up the mentioned frameworks to do what they're uniquely good at.

Oh, and btw, I run a regularly scheduled process to clean up that folder where 
I write the above mentioned images. 

Ron Grimes


________________________________________
From: cgswtsu78 [[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 9:06 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Return an Image from a REST webservice api

Thank both of you for your replies, but I'm afraid I'm confused.

If I create a BufferedImage, how can I return it to the client without
streaming it?  Since the rest web service isn't storing it anywhere but in
memory, I don't understand how to get it back to the client who called the
rest web service.  I've tried to simply stream it from the rest web service,
but I can't get access to the HttpServletResponse object as its always null.
I've tried the below to get the HttpServletResponse without success.  I'm
calling the rest web service url directly from a link on jsp page that does
a get on the rest web service url.  Thanks for all of your help, greatly
appreciated!

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