Web Technologies

Unit-III

Web Servers and Servlets

 Contents
• Tomcat web server
• Introduction to Servlets: Servlets
• The Advantage of Servlets over “Traditional” CGI
• Basic Servlet Structure
• Simple Servlet Generating Plain Text
• Compiling and Installing the Servlet
• Invoking the Servlet
• Lifecycle of a Servlet
• The Servlet API
• Reading Servlet parameters
• Reading Initialization parameters
• Context Parameters
• Handling Http Request & Responses
• Using Cookies-Session Tracking
• Servlet with JDBC

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 Tomcat web server
• A “servlet container” is like a mini server, but
only for serving html, jsp and servlets.

• Some may even be easier to configure than

tomcat, but tomcat provides an easy-to-use
development/deployment tool and also complies
with the servlet specification best of all
containers.

• Tomcat is from Apache and is open-source.

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 Tomcat web server
• Tomcat can be used as a stand-alone
servlet container.

• You can install the Apache server with

Tomcat, and then proceed to configure
each for their individual purposes. (The
server would relay servlet requests to
Tomcat.)

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 What is Tomcat?
• Tomcat is a Servlet container (Web server
that interacts with Servlets) developed under
the Jakarta Project of Apache Software
Foundation
• Tomcat implements the Servlet and the Java
Server Pages (JSP) specifications of Sun
Microsystems
• Tomcat is an open-source, non commercial
project
– Licensed under the Apache Software License
• Tomcat is written in Java (OS independent)
 Introduction to Servlets

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 What Are Servlets?
• Basically, a java
program that runs
on the server

• Creates dynamic
web pages

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 What Do They Do?
• Handle data/requests sent by users
(clients)
• Create and format results
• Send results back to user

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 Who Uses Servlets?
• Servlets are useful in many business
oriented websites

• … and MANY others

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 History
• Dynamic websites were often created
with CGI
• CGI: Common Gateway Interface
• Poor solution to today’s needs
• A better solution was needed

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 Servlets vs. CGI
• Servlet Advantages
– Efficient
• Single lightweight java thread handles multiple requests
• Optimizations such as computation caching and keeping
connections to databases open
– Convenient
• Many programmers today already know java
– Powerful
• Can talk directly to the web server
• Share data with other servlets
• Maintain data from request to request
– Portable
• Java is supported by every major web browser (through plugins)
– Inexpensive
• Adding servlet support to a server is cheap or free

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 Servlets vs. CGI
• CGI Advantages
– CGI scripts can be written in any language
– Does not depend on servlet-enabled server

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 Basic Servlet Structure
public class MyServlet extends
HttpServlet
{
public void init()
{
// Initialization here
}
public void service()
{
// Your work happens here
}
public void destroy()
{
// release resources here
}
}11/04/2020 VFSTR University 13
 Simple Servlet Generating Plain Text
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
public class HelloWorld extends HttpServlet
{
public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException,
IOException
{
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
out.println("Hello World");
}
}

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Compiling and Installing the Servlet
• Download latest version of Tomcat Server and install it
on your machine.
• After installing Tomcat Server on your machine follow
the below mentioned steps :
 Create directory structure for your application.
 Create a Servlet
 Compile the Servlet
 Create Deployement Descriptor for your application
 Start the server and deploy the application

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 Creating the Directory Structure
• Create the above directory
structure inside Apache-
Tomcat\webapps directory

• All HTML, static files(images, css

etc) are kept directly under Web
application folder. While all the
Servlet classes are kept
inside classes folder.

• The web.xml (deployment
descriptor) file is kept under WEB-
INF folder.

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 Creating a Servlet
There are three different ways to create a servlet.
• By implementing Servlet interface
• By extending GenericServlet class
• By extending HttpServlet class

• Mostly HttpServlet class is used to create a

servlet
• Java program is in WEB-INF/classes/ 

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 Compiling a Servlet
• To compile a Servlet a JAR file is required.
• Different servers require different JAR files.
• In Apache Tomcat server servlet-api.jar file is required to
compile a servlet class.

Steps to compile a Servlet

• Set the Class Path.
• Download servlet-api.jar file.
• Paste the servlet-api.jar file inside java/jdk/jre/lib/ext directory
• Compile the Servlet class.

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 Invoking the Servlet
• Create the deployment descriptor (web.xml file)

The elements are as follows:

 <web-app> represents the whole application.
 <servlet> is sub element of <web-app> and represents
the servlet.
 <servlet-name> is sub element of <servlet> represents
the name of the servlet.
 <servlet-class> is sub element of <servlet> represents
the class of the servlet.
 <servlet-mapping> is sub element of <web-app>.
 It is used to map the servlet.<url-pattern> is sub element
of <servlet-mapping>.
 This pattern is used at client side to invoke the servlet.

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 Invoking the Servlet
Start the Server and deploy the project
• To start Apache Tomcat server, double click on the
startup.bat file under apache-tomcat/bin directory.
• One Time Configuration for Apache Tomcat Server

You need to perform 2 tasks:

• set JAVA_HOME or JRE_HOME in environment
variable (It is required to start server).
• Change the port number of tomcat (optional).
• It is required if another server is running on same port
(8080).

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 Lifecycle of a Servlet

• Servlet class is loaded

• Servlet instance is created
• init method is invoked
• service method is invoked
• destroy method is invoked

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 Lifecycle of a Servlet

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 The Servlet API
Interfaces in javax.servlet package
• Servlet
• ServletRequest
• ServletResponse
• RequestDispatcher
• ServletConfig
• ServletContext
• SingleThreadModel
• Filter
• FilterConfig
• FilterChain
• ServletRequestListener
• ServletRequestAttributeListener
• ServletContextListener
• ServletContextAttributeListener

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 The Servlet API
Classes in javax.servlet package
• GenericServlet
• ServletInputStream
• ServletOutputStream
• ServletRequestWrapper
• ServletResponseWrapper
• ServletRequestEvent
• ServletContextEvent
• ServletRequestAttributeEvent
• ServletContextAttributeEvent
• ServletException
• UnavailableException

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 The Servlet API
Interfaces in javax.servlet.http package
• HttpServletRequest
• HttpServletResponse
• HttpSession
• HttpSessionListener
• HttpSessionAttributeListener
• HttpSessionBindingListener
• HttpSessionActivationListener
• HttpSessionContext (deprecated now)

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 The Servlet API
Classes in javax.servlet.http package
• HttpServlet
• Cookie
• HttpServletRequestWrapper
• HttpServletResponseWrapper
• HttpSessionEvent
• HttpSessionBindingEvent
• HttpUtils (deprecated now)

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 Reading Servlet parameters
• Servlets handles form data parsing automatically using
the following methods depending on the situation:

 getParameter():  call request.getParameter() method to

get the value of a form parameter.
 getParameterValues(): Call this method if the
parameter appears more than once and returns multiple
values, for example checkbox.
 getParameterNames(): Call this method if you want a
complete list of all parameters in the current request.

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Reading Initialization parameters
Syntax:
<web-app>  
  <servlet>  
    ......  
      
    <init-param>  
      <param-name>parametername</param-name>  
      <param-value>parametervalue</param-value>  
    </init-param>  
    ......  
  </servlet>  
</web-app>  

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 Context Parameters
Syntax:
<web-app>  
 ......  
      
  <context-param>  
    <param-name>parametername</param-name>  
    <param-value>parametervalue</param-value>  
  </context-param>  
 ......  
</web-app>  

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Handling Http Request & Responses
• The class provides four methods to handle different types of
HTTP requests
– doGet
– doPost
– doPut
– doDelete
• An extension class will implement one or more of these
methods
• Each method is called with two parameters
– A request parameter containing data about the request
– A response parameter that is used by the servlet to create
the response
• doGet and doPut are the only methods used in this text

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Handling Http Request & Responses
• The HTTP request is mapped to a servlet by the
servlet container
– A configuration file provides a standard way of
mapping paths to servlet classes
• The HttpServletResponse object passed as a
parameter to doGet and doPost provides a
PrintWriter object
• Output sent to the PrintWriter object will become part
of the response
• The HttpServletResponse object has a
setContentType method that takes the MIME type of
the response as a parameter

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 Using Cookies-Session Tracking
Cookies
• HTTP is a stateless protocol, that is, the server treats each
request as completely separate from any other
• This, however, makes some applications difficult
– A shopping cart is an object that must be maintained across
numerous requests and responses
• The mechanism of cookies can be used to help maintain state
by storing some information on the browser system
• A cookie is a key/value pair that is keyed to the domain of the
server
– This key/value pair is sent along with any request made by
the browser of the same server
• A cookie has a lifetime which specifies a time at which the
cookie is deleted from the browser

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 Cookies & Security
• Cookies are only returned to the server that created
them
• Cookies can be used to determine usage patterns that
might not otherwise be ascertained by a server
• Browsers generally allow users to limit how cookies are
used
– Browsers usually allow users to remove all cookies
currently stored by the browser
• Systems that depend on cookies will fail if the browser
refuses to store them

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 Servlet Support for Cookies
• The Java servlet support library defines a Cookie class
– Methods are provided to set the comment, set a
maximum age, and set a value
– Other methods retrieve data from the object
• The HttpServletResponse object has an addCookie
method
• Cookies must be added before setting content type in
the response
• The HttpServletRequest object has a getCookies
method that returns an array of Cookies from the
request

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 An example
• The ballot example has two components
– Ballot.html has a form used to cast a vote
– VoteCounter.java defines a servlet which counts
the votes for each candidate
• The response page to a user casting a ballot carries
a cookie. This is used to ‘mark’ a user as having
voted
• The vote tabulating servlet checks for the cookie and
refuses to tabulate a vote if the cookie is provided
with the request

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 Session Tracking
• In the Java servlet framework, sessions are sets of
key/value pairs
• The HttpSession object implements a session
• Several methods are provided to manipulate values
– putValue defines a key/value pair
– Invalidate destroys the session
– removeValue removes a key/value pair
– getValue retrieves a value given the key
• A session object, if defined, is attached to the request
object
– The programmer can access the object
– The programmer can specify on access that the
session be created if it does not yet exist
• An alternate vote counting servlet uses sessions to
check for duplicate voting
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 Servlet with JDBC
• Servlets can communicate with databases via JDBC (Java
Database Connectivity).

• JDBC provides a uniform way for a Java program to

connect with a variety of databases in a general manner
without having to deal with the specifics of those database
systems.

• Many of today's applications are three-tier distributed

applications, consisting of a user interface, business logic
and database access.

• The user interface in such an application is often created

using HTML or Dynamic HTML.
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• Using the networking provided automatically by the
browser, the user interface can communicate with the
middle-tier business logic.

• The middle tier can then access the database to

manipulate the data. All three tiers may reside on
separate computers that are connected to a network.

• In multi-tier architectures, Web servers are

increasingly used to build the middle tier.

• They provide the business logic that manipulates data

from databases and that communicates with client
Web browsers

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• Servlets, through JDBC, can interact with popular
database systems.

• Developers do not need to be familiar with the

specifics of each database system.

• Rather, developers use SQL-based queries and the

JDBC driver handles the specifics of interacting with
each database system.

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 Thank You

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