Java Servlet: delete temporary file

Every call to createTempFile gives another path, so the path has to be stored.

See SessionListener. Example - if session timeout is involved.

Maybe use the JSESSIONID as directory with temp files and delete the directory.

BTW I presume you invalidate the session after file.delete() as otherwise getSession() would create a new session. I would log file.getPath().

You can also use the deleteOnExit() method ... please have a look at the java doc of the createTempFile() -

Creates a new empty file in the specified directory, using the given prefix and 
suffix strings to generate its name. If this method returns successfully then 
it is guaranteed that:

The file denoted by the returned abstract pathname did not exist before this 
method was invoked and , 

Neither this method nor any of its variants will return the same abstract 
pathname again in the current invocation of the virtual machine. 

This method provides only part of a temporary-file facility. To arrange 
for a file created by this method to be deleted automatically, use the
deleteOnExit() method.

Make sure you have closed the file before attempting to delete it when the user logs out and check what File#delete() returns.

@Test
public void createTempFile() throws IOException {
    File tf = File.createTempFile("hello", ".tmp", new File("."));
    FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(tf);
    fos.write("Hello, Temp!".getBytes());
    Assert.assertTrue(tf.delete()); // fails because the file could not be deleted
                                    // and delete() returns false
}

vs.

@Test
public void createTempFile() throws IOException {
    File tf = File.createTempFile("hello", ".tmp", new File("."));
    FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(tf);
    fos.write("Hello, Temp!".getBytes());
    fos.close();
    Assert.assertTrue(tf.delete()); // passes, file deleted
}

With File#deleteOnExit() the file will be deleted twhen the VM exits, this happen when your tomcat is shutdown. So it won't help on user logout.

EDIT

Make sure you have only one file per user and across mutiple requests. I suggest you use a SessionListener as Joop suggested, create the file when HttpSessionListener#sessionCreated is called and put it into the session with a well known key, you can get the session object using HttpSessionEvent#getSession(). When you logout call HttpSession.#invalidate(), the Listner method HttpSessionListener#sessionDestroyed will be called, then you can get the file from the session and delete it.

Simple example, (doGet only and without SessionListener)

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;

import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;

@WebServlet(urlPatterns = "/ptf.html")
public class PopulateTempFile extends HttpServlet { 
    private static final long serialVersionUID = -144949663400032218L;

    private static class TempFilePopulator {
        private File tf = null;
        public TempFilePopulator(String rootDir) throws IOException {
            tf = File.createTempFile("hello", ".tmp", new File(rootDir));
        }

        public void populate(String line) throws IOException {
            FileWriter fw = new FileWriter(tf, true);
            fw.write(line + "\n");
            fw.close();
        }

        public List<String> getContent() throws IOException {
            List<String> lines = new ArrayList<String>();
            BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(tf)));
            String line;
            while(null != (line = br.readLine())) {
                lines.add(line);
            }
            br.close();
            return lines;
        }

        public boolean deleteTempFile() { return tf.delete(); }
        public String toString() { return tf.getAbsolutePath(); }
    }


    @Override
    public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException {

        HttpSession session = request.getSession();
        TempFilePopulator tfp = (TempFilePopulator) session.getAttribute("tempfilepopulator");

        response.setContentType("text/html");
        PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
        out.println("<html>");

        out.println("<a href=\"" + request.getServletContext().getContextPath()
            + request.getServletPath() + "\">Refresh</a>");
        out.println("&nbsp;|&nbsp;");
        out.println("<a href=\"" + request.getServletContext().getContextPath()
            + request.getServletPath() + "?logout=true\">Logout</a>");

        String logout = request.getParameter("logout");
        if("true".equals(logout)) {
            if(tfp != null) {
                if(tfp.deleteTempFile()) {
                    log("Temp file '" + tfp + "' deleted.");
                } else {
                    log("Unable to delete temp file '" + tfp + "'");
                }
            }
            session.invalidate();
        } else {
            if(tfp == null) {
                tfp = new TempFilePopulator(request.getServletContext().getRealPath("/"));
                log("Temp file '" + tfp + "' created.");
                session.setAttribute("tempfilepopulator", tfp);
            }
            tfp.populate(new Date().toString());
            out.println("<p>Content of temp file</p>");
            List<String> lines = tfp.getContent();
            for(String line : lines) {
                out.write(line);
                out.write("<br/>");
            }
        }
        out.println("</html>");
    }
}