25-Sep-21
Web Servers and Servlets
Prof. Rama Chandra Rao Meka
RGMCET Nandyal
URL
• Stands for Uniform Resource Locator.
• The address that is typed in a web-
browser in order to load a page from a
remote location.
• Request and response to a typed URL is
in terms of the http protocol.
• Typically consists of the protocol, followed
by a “:” and an IP address of a machine
followed by the file name to load.
HTML
• Stands for Hyper-text Markup Language.
• Most widely used language for data
transfer across the web.
• Provides means to create structured
documents by denoting structural
semantics such as headings, paragraphs,
lists, links etc.
Pre-requisites
• What is a URL?
• What is http?
• What is a stateless protocol?
• What is HTML?
• What is a Web-server?
HTTP
• Stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol.
• The most widely used protocol for
transferring data between web-browsers
and web-servers.
• Is a stateless protocol implemented at the
Application Layer.
• The default http port is : 80
Web-server
• A web server is a computer on the internet
that hosts websites, serving pages to
viewers upon request.
• It has a unique IP address.
• Needs software to enable hosting of
pages, scripting etc.
• Maps the path component of the URL into
a local file system resource.
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Need for servlets
• Early days of building dynamic content in a
client-server model
• One process for every client request.
• Communication with the web-server via
the Common Gateway Interface.
• CGI defines how the web server can
delegate generation of web-pages to a
console application.
• CGI Programs – C/C++, Perl etc.
CGI - disadvantages
• Very expensive in terms of resources –
memory and processor time.
• Very expensive in terms of database
operations – one connection
opened/closed for every client request.
• Platform-dependent.
Servlet Lifecycle
• URL typed and HTTP request sent across
the network.
• Request arrives at the web-server.
• The request is mapped to a servlet.
• The servlet is loaded into the address
space of the web-server.
• The web-server invokes the “init()” method
of the servlet. (one-time op at load-time)
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How a CGI program works
Enter servlets
• Servlets are small programs (threads) that
execute within the address space of a
web-server.
• No separate process required for every
client request.
• Platform-independent.
• Entire gamut of java class libraries
available to the servlet.
Servlet Lifecycle…
• Init() method may configure the servlet
with initialization parameters.
• The “service()” method is invoked next.
This processes the http request. It can
read parameters from the request and
formulate an http response. The “service()”
method is called for every request.
• When the servlet has to be unloaded from
memory, the destroy() method is called.
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Servlet Lifecycle
• destroy() performs cleanup operations like
releasing of file handlers, persisting
important information etc.
• Memory allocated for the servlet is then
set aside for garbage collection.
Apache Tomcat server
• Open source implementation of Java
servlets and JSP
• Default location is
C:\\Program files\Apache Software
Foundation\Tomcat 5.5
• The servlet-api.jar which contains all
classes and interfaces to support servlets
is located in the “common\lib” directory
Apache tomcat server…
• For the servlet to run successfully, entries
are also needed in the “web.xml” file.
• Two entries are needed here. One in the
section that defines servlets and another
in the section that defines servlet
mappings.
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Servlet Packages
• Two packages define the classes and
interfaces needed by servlets.
• javax.servlet and javax.servlet.http.
• They are not part of the core Java
packages.
• They are standards extensions that are
provided by web-servers.
Apache tomcat server..
• In order to be able to access the servlet
classes and interfaces at compile and
runtime, the servlet-api.jar needs to be
present in the CLASSPATH.
• For tomcat to be able to load a servlet, the
servlet needs to be present under its
“webapps” directory.
Apache tomcat server…
• Ex: If the servlet is named “HelloServlet”, the
entries required are:
• <servlet>
<servlet-name>HelloServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>HelloServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
• <servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>HelloServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/servlet/HelloServlet</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
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A simple servlet
• HelloServlet.java
Important Interfaces
• Servlet – declares init(), service(), destroy()
• ServletConfig – to get initialization params
• ServletContext – info on servlet env
• ServletRequest – read data from client
• ServletResponse – write data to client
Servlet Interface
• Declares the lifecycle methods of a
servlet.
• String getServletInfo() – returns a string
describing the servlet.
• ServletConfig getServletConfig() – returns
the servlet configuration
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Details…
• GenericServlet – implements “Servlet”
interface. Provides default versions of
init(), service() and destroy().
• We need to override service() method.
• setContentType() establishes content type
of response.
• PrintWriter is a stream. Anything written to
this stream is sent to the client as part of
the http response.
Important classes
• GenericServlet – implements Servlet and
ServletConfig
• ServletInputStream – provides i/p stream
for reading requests from client
• ServletOutputStream – provides o/p
stream for writing responses to client
• ServletException - errors
• UnavailableException - errors
ServletConfig Interface
• To obtain configuration data when the servlet is
loaded.
• String getServletName() – returns the servlet
name
• Enumeration getInitParameterNames() – returns
an enumeration of initialization parameter
names.
• String getInitParameter(String name) – returns
the value of the initialization parameter named
“name”.
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ServletContext Interface ServletRequest Interface

• Enables information retrieval about a
servlet’s environment.
• Object getAttribute(String attr) – returns
the server attribute named “attr”.
• String getServerInfo() – returns info on the
server.
• void setAttribute(String attr, Object val) –
sets the attribute named “attr” to the value
specified by “val”
• Enumeration getParameterNames() –
returns an enumeration of parameter
names passed in this request.
• String getParameter(String name) –
returns the value of the parameter named
“name” in the request.
• String getContentType() – return the
content type of the request

ServletResponse Interface GenericServlet class

• PrintWriter getWriter() – returns a • Implements Servlet and ServletConfig
PrintWriter object to write character data to Interfaces.
response.
• ServletOutputStream getOutputStream() –
returns a ServletOutputStream object to
write “binary” data to response.
• void setContentType() – sets the content
type of the response.

Exceptions
• ServletException – thrown when the • PostParameterServlet.java
servlet encounters a problem.

• UnavailableException – extends
ServletException. Thrown when the
requested server is not available.

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The javax.servlet.http
• Special functionality built to specifically
handle HTTP requests.
• The core interfaces provided for this
purpose are: HttpServletRequest,
HttpServletResponse, HttpSession and
the HttpSessionBindingListener.
HttpServletResponse
• void addCookie(Cookie obj)
• void setHeader(String field, String value)
• void setStatus(int code)
• HttpGetServlet.java
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HttpServletRequest
• Info on the http request from the client.
• Important methods here are:
– String getHeader(String fieldName)
– String getMethod()
– String getQueryString()
– Cookie[ ] getCookies()
– StringBuffer getRequestURL()
HttpServlet class
• Extends the GenericServlet class.
• Defines various methods to handle
different kinds of http requests.
• void doGet() – to handle Http “GET”
requests.
• Void doPost() – to handle Http “POST”
requests.
Cookies
• The “Cookie” class encapsulates a cookie.
• A cookie is stored on the client (browser)
side.
• It is useful in tracking user activities.
• If some information is necessary to be
passed between the client and server on
every request, it is ideal to send it via a
cookie.
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Cookies…
• With cookies, user does not have to enter the
data each time he visits the same website.
• Typically a cookie is saved in a file on the client’s
machine, along with the domain and path of the
webserver.
• When the user enters a URL, the domain and
path are checked and if a corresponding cookie
exists, it is sent silently to the web-server.
Cookies…
• Cookies are stored as “name-value” pairs
on the client machine.
• In addition, the expiration date of the
cookie is also saved. The expiration date
decides when the cookie is to be deleted
from the client-machine.
• Cookies can be stored on the client
machine by a servlet executing on the
server side.

Cookies… Cookies…
• The servlet can call the “addCookie()” • A few important methods are:
method to store a cookie on the client – String getName()
machine.
– String getValue()
• The addCookie() method belongs to the – void setMaxAge(int secs)
HttpServletResponse interface.
– int getMaxAge()
• The cookie is then sent as part of the
– String getDomain()
response header.
• Constructor: Cookie(String name, String
value)

Cookies.. Cookies…
• A word of caution with unfamiliar sites…. • SetCookiesServlet.java
• Cookies.html
• getCookiesServlet.java

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http details
• Uses the Client-server model.
• Is Stateless.
• Works on a request-response mechanism.
• Http message format:
– Initial line
– Header1
– Header2
– <blank line>
– body
http methods - GET
• The GET method means retrieve whatever
information (in the form of an entity) is
identified by the Request-URI. If the
Request-URI refers to a data-producing
process, it is the produced data which
shall be returned as the entity in the
response.
http methods - POST
• POST
• A POST request is used to send data to
the server to be processed in some way,
like by a CGI script. A POST request is
different from a GET request in the
following ways:
– There's a block of data sent with the request,
in the message body. There are usually extra
headers to describe this message body, like
Content-Type: and Content-Length:.
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http…
• Example:
GET /path/to/file http/1.0
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1999 23:59:59 GMT
Content-type: text/html
<Message body here>
http methods - HEAD
• The HEAD method is identical to GET
except that the server MUST NOT return a
message-body in the response. The
metainformation contained in the HTTP
headers in response to a HEAD request
SHOULD be identical to the information
sent in response to a GET request.
http methods – POST…
– The request URI is not a resource to retrieve;
it's usually a program to handle the data
you're sending.
– The HTTP response is normally program
output, not a static file.
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http methods – POST… http methods - DELETE

• Example • The DELETE method requests that the
POST /path/script.cgi HTTP/1.0 origin server delete the resource identified
From: frog@jmarshall.com by the Request-URI.
User-Agent: HTTPTool/1.0
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-
urlencoded
Content-Length: 32

home=Cosby&favorite+flavor=flies

HttpSession
• Enables a servlet to read and write state
information associated with an HTTP session.
• A new session can be created using the
getSession(true) call on a HttpServletRequest
object. With this call if a session already exists
for the request object, it is returned. Else a new
HttpSession object is created and returned.
• Provides a way of getting around the “stateless”
nature of the Http protocol.
HttpSession
• The HttpSession object provides methods
such as setAttribute(), getAttribute(),
removeAttribute() and getAttributeNames()
to manage bindings between objects and
names.
• All servlets associated with a particular
client will share the session state.

Session tracking example

• DateSession.java