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Tomcat Servlet Interaction

Apache Tomcat is primarily a Java servlet container that utilizes the Java Servlet and JSP APIs to receive client requests, dynamically compile classes to handle each request, and return responses. This enables extremely fast and scalable processing of requests. Servlets hosted on Tomcat can leverage any resources it provides and are configured through XML files for access control and logical architecture. Tomcat manages the entire lifecycle of servlets from loading to destroying instances to process requests and communicate with clients.

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Eddy Boutros
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89 views3 pages

Tomcat Servlet Interaction

Apache Tomcat is primarily a Java servlet container that utilizes the Java Servlet and JSP APIs to receive client requests, dynamically compile classes to handle each request, and return responses. This enables extremely fast and scalable processing of requests. Servlets hosted on Tomcat can leverage any resources it provides and are configured through XML files for access control and logical architecture. Tomcat manages the entire lifecycle of servlets from loading to destroying instances to process requests and communicate with clients.

Uploaded by

Eddy Boutros
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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An Introduction to Tomcat Servlet Interactions

Although its flexible configuration and interoperability with supporting technologies have
enabled Apache Tomcat to act as a web application server in many circumstances,
Tomcat is primarily a Java servlet container.  

Utilizing its implementation of the Java Servlet and JSP APIs, Tomcat is able to receive
requests from a client, dynamically compile a container-managed Java class to handle
the request as specified in the relevant application Context, and return the result to the
client.  This method of generating dynamic content enables extremely fast, threaded,
platform independent processing of requests.  

Furthermore, as the Java Servlet specification is designed for interoperability with all
other major Java web technologies, a servlet hosted on a Tomcat server is able to
leverage any resource that Tomcat makes available to it.  Tomcat's nested hierarchical
XML configuration files allow for extremely fine-grained resource access control, while
maintaining loose coupling, ease of deployment, and logical, human-readable
architecture descriptions.  

In this article, we'll take a look at how Apache Tomcat uses Servlets to quickly deliver a
wide range of dynamic content to a client.

How Tomcat Works With Servlets


One of the key requirements worked into the Servlet specification is that they only are
expected to handle certain parts of the total data transaction process.  For example, the
servlet code itself will never listen for requests on a certain port, nor will it communicate
directly with a client, nor is it responsible for managing its access to resources.  Rather,
these things are managed by Tomcat, the servlet container.  

This allows servlets to be re-used in a wide variety of environments, or for components


to be developed asynchronously from one another - a connector can be re-factored for
improved efficiency without any changes to the servlet code itself, as long as no major
changes are made.
Servlet Life Cycles
As managed components, servlets have a life cycle, which begins when the managing
container loads the servlet class, usually in response to a request, and ends when the
container closes the servlet by calling the "destroy" method.  All the servlet's activity
between these two points is considered part of its life cycle.

The lifecycle of a typical servlet running on Tomcat might look something like this:

1. Tomcat receives a request from a client through one of its connectors.


2. Tomcat maps this request to the appropriate Engine for processing.  These Engines
are contained within other elements, such as Hosts and Servers, which limit the scope of
Tomcat's search for the correct Engine.
3. Once the request has been mapped to the appropriate servlet, Tomcat checks to see
if that servlet class has been loaded.  If it has not, Tomcat compiles the servlet into Java
bytecode, which is executable by the JVM, and creates an instance of the servlet.
4. Tomcat initializes the servlet by calling its init method.  The servlet includes code that
is able to read Tomcat configuration files and act accordingly, as well as declare any
resources it might need, so that Tomcat can create them in an orderly, managed fashion.
5. Once the servlet has been initialized, Tomcat can call the servlet's service method to
process the request, which will be returned as a response.
6. During the servlet's lifecycle, Tomcat and the servlet can communicate through the
use of listener classes, which monitor the servlet for a variety of state changes.  Tomcat can
retrieve and store these state changes in a variety of ways, and allow other servlets access
to them, allowing state to be maintained and accessed by various components of a given
context across the span of a single or multiple user sessions.  An example of this
functionality in action is an e-commerce application that remembers what the user has
added to their cart and is able to pass this data to a checkout process.
7. Tomcat calls the servlet's destroy method to smoothly remove the servlet.  This
action is triggered either by a state change that is being listened for, or by an external
command delivered to Tomcat to undeploy the servlet's Context or shut down the server.

Combination of Components
Using servlets and the resources they access in conjunction with static HTML pages
and JSP pages, which contain a mixture of HTML and Java code, and can call servlet
methods using either native tag libraries or custom tags, Tomcat is able to present a
user with a dynamic, secure, persistent web application.  
For example, a user might access a page where dynamic user interface objects are
handled client-side with AJAX, CSS, and HTML5 interacting with the DOM, while user
information is pulled from a database via a JSP tag that interacts with a servlet method.
This allows the presentation of a page to be completely separated from any business
logic, for improved security and design flexibility.

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