Class WebappTemplateLoader

java.lang.Object
freemarker.ext.jakarta.servlet.WebappTemplateLoader
All Implemented Interfaces:
TemplateLoader

public class WebappTemplateLoader extends Object implements TemplateLoader
A TemplateLoader that uses streams reachable through ServletContext.getResource(String) as its source of templates.

Note that this is for the legacy "javax" Servlet API; for Jakarta (that is, in modern Servlet containers), use freemarker.ext.jakarta.servlet.WebappTemplateLoader instead (since 2.3.33).

  • Constructor Details

    • WebappTemplateLoader

      public WebappTemplateLoader(jakarta.servlet.ServletContext servletContext)
      Creates a template loader that will use the specified servlet context to load the resources. It will use the base path of "/" meaning templates will be resolved relative to the servlet context root location.
      Parameters:
      servletContext - the servlet context whose ServletContext.getResource(String) will be used to load the templates.
    • WebappTemplateLoader

      public WebappTemplateLoader(jakarta.servlet.ServletContext servletContext, String subdirPath)
      Creates a template loader that will use the specified servlet context to load the resources. It will use the specified base path, which is interpreted relatively to the context root (does not mater if you start it with "/" or not). Path components should be separated by forward slashes independently of the separator character used by the underlying operating system.
      Parameters:
      servletContext - the servlet context whose ServletContext.getResource(String) will be used to load the templates.
      subdirPath - the base path to template resources.
  • Method Details

    • findTemplateSource

      public Object findTemplateSource(String name) throws IOException
      Description copied from interface: TemplateLoader
      Finds the template in the backing storage and returns an object that identifies the storage location where the template can be loaded from. See the return value for more information.
      Specified by:
      findTemplateSource in interface TemplateLoader
      Parameters:
      name - The name (template root directory relative path) of the template, already localized and normalized by the cache. It is completely up to the loader implementation to interpret the name, however it should expect to receive hierarchical paths where path components are separated by a slash (not backslash). Backslashes (or any other OS specific separator character) are not considered as separators by FreeMarker, and thus they will not be replaced with slash before passing to this method, so it's up to the template loader to handle them (say, by throwing an exception that tells the user that the path (s)he has entered is invalid, as (s)he must use slash -- typical mistake of Windows users). The passed names are always considered relative to some loader-defined root location (often referred as the "template root directory"), and will never start with a slash, nor will they contain a path component consisting of either a single or a double dot -- these are all resolved by the template cache before passing the name to the loader. As a side effect, paths that trivially reach outside template root directory, such as ../my.ftl, will be rejected by the template cache, so they never reach the template loader. Note again, that if the path uses backslash as path separator instead of slash as (the template loader should not accept that), the normalization will not properly happen, as FreeMarker (the cache) recognizes only the slashes as separators.
      Returns:
      An object representing the template source, which can be supplied in subsequent calls to TemplateLoader.getLastModified(Object) and TemplateLoader.getReader(Object, String), when those are called on the same TemplateLoader. null must be returned if the source for the template doesn't exist; don't throw exception then! The exact type of this object is up to the TemplateLoader implementation. As this object is possibly used as hash key in caches, and is surly compared with another template source for equality, it must have a proper Object.equals(Object) and Object.hashCode()) implementation. Especially, template sources that refer to the same physical source must be equivalent, otherwise template caching can become inefficient. This is only expected from Object.equals(Object) when the compared template sources came from the same TemplateLoader instance. Also, it must not influence the equality if the source is open or closed (TemplateLoader.closeTemplateSource(Object)).
      Throws:
      IOException - When an error occurs that makes it impossible to find out if the template exists, or to access the existing template. Don't throw exception if the template doesn't exist, instead return with null then!
    • getLastModified

      public long getLastModified(Object templateSource)
      Description copied from interface: TemplateLoader
      Returns the time of last modification of the specified template source. This method is called after findTemplateSource().
      Specified by:
      getLastModified in interface TemplateLoader
      Parameters:
      templateSource - an object representing a template source (the template file), obtained through a prior call to TemplateLoader.findTemplateSource(String). This must be an object on which TemplateLoader.closeTemplateSource(Object) wasn't applied yet.
      Returns:
      The time of last modification for the specified template source, or -1 if the time is not known. This value meant to be milliseconds since the epoch, but in fact FreeMarker doesn't care what it means, it only cares if it changes, in which case the template needs to be reloaded (even if the value has decreased). -1 is not special in that regard either; if you keep returning it, FreeMarker won't reload the template (as far as it's not evicted from the cache from some other reason). Note that Long.MIN_VALUE is reserved for internal use.
    • getReader

      public Reader getReader(Object templateSource, String encoding) throws IOException
      Description copied from interface: TemplateLoader
      Returns the character stream of a template represented by the specified template source. This method is possibly called for multiple times for the same template source object, and it must always return a Reader that reads the template from its beginning. Before this method is called for the second time (or later), its caller must close the previously returned Reader, and it must not use it anymore. That is, this method is not required to support multiple concurrent readers for the same source templateSource object.

      Typically, this method is called if the template is missing from the cache, or if after calling TemplateLoader.findTemplateSource(String) and TemplateLoader.getLastModified(Object) it was determined that the cached copy of the template is stale. Then, if it turns out that the encoding parameter used doesn't match the actual template content (based on the #ftl encoding=... header), this method will be called for a second time with the correct encoding parameter value.

      Unlike TemplateLoader.findTemplateSource(String), this method must not tolerate if the template is not found, and must throw IOException in that case.

      Specified by:
      getReader in interface TemplateLoader
      Parameters:
      templateSource - an object representing a template source, obtained through a prior call to TemplateLoader.findTemplateSource(String). This must be an object on which TemplateLoader.closeTemplateSource(Object) wasn't applied yet.
      encoding - the character encoding used to translate source bytes to characters. Some loaders may not have access to the byte representation of the template stream, and instead directly obtain a character stream. These loaders should ignore the encoding parameter.
      Returns:
      A Reader representing the template character stream; not null. It's the responsibility of the caller (which is TemplateCache usually) to close() it. The Reader is not required to work after the templateSource was closed (TemplateLoader.closeTemplateSource(Object)).
      Throws:
      IOException - if an I/O error occurs while accessing the stream.
    • closeTemplateSource

      public void closeTemplateSource(Object templateSource) throws IOException
      Description copied from interface: TemplateLoader
      Closes the template source, releasing any resources held that are only required for reading the template and/or its metadata. This is the last method that is called by the TemplateCache for a template source, except that Object.equals(Object) is might called later too. TemplateCache ensures that this method will be called on every object that is returned from TemplateLoader.findTemplateSource(String).
      Specified by:
      closeTemplateSource in interface TemplateLoader
      Parameters:
      templateSource - the template source that should be closed.
      Throws:
      IOException
    • getURLConnectionUsesCaches

      public Boolean getURLConnectionUsesCaches()
      Since:
      2.3.21
    • setURLConnectionUsesCaches

      public void setURLConnectionUsesCaches(Boolean urlConnectionUsesCaches)
      Since:
      2.3.21
    • toString

      public String toString()
      Show class name and some details that are useful in template-not-found errors.
      Overrides:
      toString in class Object
      Since:
      2.3.21
    • getAttemptFileAccess

      public boolean getAttemptFileAccess()
      Since:
      2.3.23
    • setAttemptFileAccess

      public void setAttemptFileAccess(boolean attemptLoadingFromFile)
      Specifies that before loading templates with ServletContext.getResource(String), it should try to load the template as File; default is true, though it's not always recommended anymore. This is a workaround for the case when the servlet container doesn't show template modifications after the template was already loaded earlier. But it's certainly better to counter this problem by disabling the URL connection cache with setURLConnectionUsesCaches(Boolean), which is also the default behavior with incompatible_improvements 2.3.21 and later.
      Since:
      2.3.23