MODULE 4

Introducing Servlets
Introducing Servlets
• Servlets are small programs that execute on the server side of a web
connection.
• servlets dynamically extend the functionality of a web server.
 Background
• to understand the advantages of servlets, you must have a basic
understanding of
how web browsers and servers cooperate to provide content to a user.
• Consider a request for a static web page. A user enters a Uniform Resource
Locator (URL) into a browser.
• The browser generates an HTTP request to the appropriate web server. The
web server maps this request to a specific file. That file is returned in an HTTP
response to the browser.
• The HTTP header in the response indicates the type of the content. The
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) are used for this purpose.
• For example, ordinary ASCII text has a MIME type of text/plain. The Hypertext
Markup Language (HTML) source code of a web page has a MIME type of
text/html
• Now consider dynamic content. Assume that an online store uses a database to
store information about its business. This would include items for sale, prices,
availability, orders, and so forth. It wishes to make this information accessible
to customers via web pages.
• The contents of those web pages must be dynamically generated to reflect the
latest information in the database.
• In the early days of the Web, a server could dynamically construct a page by
creating a separate process to handle each client request.
• The process would open connections to one or more databases in order to
obtain the necessary information. It communicated with the web server via an
interface known as the Common Gateway Interface (CGI).
• CGI allowed the separate process to read data from the HTTP request and write
data to the HTTP response.
• A variety of different languages were used to build CGI programs. These
included C, C++, and Perl.
 However, CGI suffered serious performance problems.
1. It was expensive in terms of processor and memory resources to
create a separate process for each client request.
2. It was also expensive to open and close database connections for
each client request.
3. the CGI programs were not platform-independent.
 • Servlets offer several advantages in comparison with CGI.
1. First, performance is significantly better.
2. Servlets execute within the address space of a web server.
3. It is not necessary to create a separate process to handle each client
request.
4. Second, servlets are platform-independent because they are written in
Java.
5. Third, the Java security manager on the server enforces a set of
restrictions to protect the resources on a server machine.
6. Finally, the full functionality of the Java class libraries is available to a
servlet. It can communicate with applets, databases, or other software via
the sockets and RMI mechanisms.
 The Life Cycle of a Servlet
• Three methods are central to the life cycle of a servlet.
• These are init( ), service( ), and destroy( ).
• They are implemented by every servlet and are invoked at specific
times by the server.
• Let us consider a typical user scenario to understand when these
methods are called.
1. First, assume that a user enters a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to a
web browser. The browser then generates an HTTP request for this
URL. This request is then sent to the appropriate server.
• Second, this HTTP request is received by the web server. The server maps
this request to a particular servlet. The servlet is dynamically retrieved
and loaded into the address space of the server.
• Third, the server invokes the init() method of the servlet. This method is
invoked only when the servlet is first loaded into memory. It is possible to
pass initialization parameters to the servlet so it may configure itself.
• Fourth, the server invokes the service( ) method of the servlet. This
method is called to process the HTTP request. You will see that it is
possible for the servlet to read data that has been provided in the HTTP
request. It may also formulate an HTTP response for the client.
• The servlet remains in the server’s address space and is available to
process any other HTTP requests received from clients. The service( )
method is called for each HTTP request.
• Finally, the server may decide to unload the servlet from its memory. The
algorithms by which this determination is made are specific to each
server. The server calls the destroy( ) method to relinquish any resources
such as file handles that are allocated for the servlet.
• Important data may be saved to a persistent store. The memory allocated
for the servlet and its objects can then be garbage collected.
Servlet Development Options
• To create servlets, you will need access to a servlet container/server.
Two popular ones are Glassfish and Tomcat.
• Glassfish is from Oracle and is provided by the Java EE SDK. It is
supported by NetBeans.
• Tomcat is an open-source product maintained by the Apache
Software Foundation. It can also be used by NetBeans. Both Tomcat
and Glassfish can also be used with other IDEs, such as Eclipse.
Servlet Demo
Index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Insert title here</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="add">
Enter Ist number: <input type="text" name="num1"><br>
Enter IInd number: <input type="text" name="num2"><br>
<input type="submit">
</form>
</body>
</html
package servelet.com;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
public class AddServelet extends HttpServlet
{
public void service(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) throws IOException
{
int i=Integer.parseInt(req.getParameter("num1"));
int j=Integer.parseInt(req.getParameter("num2"));
int k=i+j;
PrintWriter out=res.getWriter();
out.println("The Result is :"+ k);

}
}
Web.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee
http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_4_0.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="4.0">
<servlet>
<servlet-name>abc</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>servelet.com.AddServelet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>abc</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/add</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>