Re: Servlet not displaying background GIF -- JAVA400-L

The reason the background gif is not showing up is because the HTTP server
is not finding it in the place it thinks it should find it.  Here is the
scoop

The author of the note has specified  a body tag like so:
<body  BACKGROUND="xxxx.gif">

When this response goes back to the client (browser) it tries to display
the html page that was generated out of the response.  When it sees the
Background attribute specified with the name of the image file specified it
will try to get that image file to display it within the page.  A new
request will go to the HTTP server to get the image file.  However the
request will be formed as http://<server>:port/servlet/xxxx.gif.  Since it
will use the same url as the original request for the servlet except
replace the servlet name with the image file name.  In WebSphere 2.0x
because of the Service statement  /servlet/*  in the HTTP config file this
request will get handled by WebSphere instead of the HTTP server and the
image file will never be found.

To make this work  there is a slight change necessary.

Assuming the server had a directory like /images  right under the root for
example where images are kept then if this image is put in that directory
and a Pass statement added to the HTTP config file like

Pass /*   /images/*

and the servlet code is changed to use

<body BACKGROUND="../xxxx.gif">  then it should work.

The reason is that by giving a relative path to  the current URL  the
browser will now generate a new request like
the following for the image.

http://<server>:port/xxxx.gif.   Now when the HTTP server gets the request
it will try to service it rather than send it to WebSphere since the
/servlet/*  pattern is not there anymore in the URL.  And because of the
Pass statement  the /xxxx.gif will translate to the actual physical
location (done by the HTTP server)  -> http://server:port/images/xxxx.gif
and it will be found and displayed correctly by the client.

Hope this explains things.

*****************************************************
Jai Goradia



Duncan_Folkes@cuk.canon.co.uk on 07/13/2000 06:40:48 AM

Please respond to JAVA400-L@midrange.com

To:   JAVA400-L@midrange.com
cc:
Subject:  Servlet not displaying background GIF






Hi,

I am trying to display a background GIF file in my servlet running
under Websphere 2.03. If I alter the code to use BGCOLOR the colour
of the background changes, but I cannot get the servlet to display
the background image.
If I view the source from the Servlet web page and save this as an html
file I can, when serving the web page from my AS/400, display the
background gif.

Below is an excerpt from the superclass which defines [some] of the html
source:

 protected void outputHeader(PrintWriter out, String title) throws
IOException
  flexLog(title + ": outputHeader()...");

  out.print("<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>" + title + "</TITLE>");

  out.println("</HEAD><BODY>");

  out.print("<BODY BACKGROUND=\"as400.gif\">");

  flexLog(title + ": outputHeader() executed.");

 } // end outputHeader()


I am probably doing something daft but at the moment can't see the
wood for the trees - anyone got any ideas?

Dr Duncan E. Folkes
Wizcom Data Limited


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