How to read in the XML file on a remote website using JSP?

Question

Hi,

I'm using java servlets and jsp in my application and I need to read the remote XML file and properly render it into HTML and display on a web page...What is the technology used for reading process?Should I use HTTPURLConnection class to read the contents of the xml file or there is some other way? And also,if I use servlet as a controller and JSP as a view,what would be the responsibility of servlet and jsp in this process?Should servlet just read the whole XML file and then just pass the read output to JSP which will just print it and render properly using XSL for example?

I really hope to hear from any people who may help,

With kind regards

Answer 1

JSP has no responsibility here. Just transform the XML in servlet using XSL and write its result directly to the OutputStream of the response.

StreamSource xml = new StreamSource(new URL("http://external.com/file.xml").openStream());
StreamSource xsl = new StreamSource(new File("/path/to/file.xsl"));
StreamResult out = new StreamResult(response.getOutputStream());

try {
    Transformer transformer = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer(xsl);
    transformer.transform(xml, out);
} catch (TransformerException e) {
    throw new ServletException("Transforming XML failed.", e);
}

Don't forget to set the Content-Type using HttpServletResponse#setContentType(), else the webbrowser may handle it as plaintext.