Servlets
Web Application:
• A web application is an application accessible from the web.
• A web application is composed of web components like
Servlet, JSP, etc. and other elements such as HTML, CSS, and
JavaScript.
• The web components typically execute in Web Server and
respond to the HTTP request.
Common Gateway Interface:
• CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripting language is a basic
server-side programming language. which is used to develop
dynamic web pages.
• CGI technology enables the web server to call an external
program and pass HTTP request information to process the
request.
Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
In CGI,For each request, it starts a new process.
• Each new process requires separate memory,CPU time so
processor load will increase.
There are many problems in CGI technology:
• If the number of clients increases, it takes more time for sending
the response.
• For each request, it starts a process, and the web server is
limited to start processes.
• It uses platform dependent language e.g. C, C++, perl.
Servlets:
• Servlet technology is used to create a web application (resides at
server side and generates a dynamic web page).
• Servlet technology is robust and scalable because of java
language.
• Before Servlet, CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripting
language was common as a server-side programming language.
However, there were many disadvantages to this technology.
• Servlet is a class that extends the capabilities of the servers and
responds to the incoming requests.
• The web container creates threads for handling the multiple
requests to the Servlet.
• Threads have many benefits over the Processes such as they share
a common memory area, lightweight, cost of communication
between the threads are low.
The advantages of Servlet are as follows:
• Better performance: because it creates a thread for each request,
not process.
• Portability: because it uses Java language.
• Robust: JVM manages Servlets, so we don't need to worry about
the memory leak, garbage collection, etc.
Servlet Vs CGI
Lifecycle of Servlet:
Lifecycle of a servlet describes how and when a servlet is loaded, initialized, able to
handle requests and unloaded.
New Instance is Created
• There are 3 methods in
lifecycle of servlet, those Servlet Uninitialized
are
Init() method Called
– init() : This method
One or more
initializes the servlet. Requests Servlet initialized
processed by and Ready to
service() method process requests
– service() : This
method process the Destroy() method called
http requests.
Instance Garbage
collected
– destroy(): This
method is used to
destroy the servlet.
Create a servlet example
The servlet example can be created by three ways:
– By implementing Servlet interface,
– By inheriting GenericServlet class, (or)
– By inheriting HttpServlet class
Here, we are going to use tomcat server in this example.
The steps are as follows:
1. Create a directory structure
2. Create a Servlet
3. Compile the Servlet
4. Create a deployment descriptor
5. Start the server
6. Access the servlet
1. Create a directory structure:
• The directory structure defines
that where to put the different
types of files so that web container
may get the information and
respond to the client.
• Let's see the directory structure
that must be followed to create the
servlet.
2.Create a servlet:
import java.io.*; First.java
import javax.servlet.*;
public class First extends GenericServlet
{
public void service(ServletRequest req,ServletResponse res)
throws IOException,ServletException{
res.setContentType("text/html");
PrintWriter out=res.getWriter();
out.print("<html><body>");
out.print("<b>Welcome to servlet</b>");
out.print("</body></html>");
}
}
3.Compile the servlet:
• Servlet can be compliled by using jar file
• Jar file are required to be loaded.
Servlet-api.jar
Two ways to load the jar file
1. set classpath
2. paste the jar file in JRE/lib/ext folder
Put the java file in any folder. After compiling the java file,
paste the class file of servlet in WEB-INF/classes directory.
4.Create a deployment description:
• Deployment description is an XML file with a name web.xml
• From this xml file web container gets the information about the servlet
to be invoked
Web.xml
<web-app>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>hello</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>First</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>hello</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/welcome</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
5.Start the server and deploy the project:
• There are two ways to deploy the project
– Deployment
• Copy project into c://xampp/tomcat/web-apps
– Start Tomcat server
• By using Xampp control panel
• By running catalina_start batch file.
(c://xampp/tomcat/)
6. Access the servlet:
Reading Servlet Parameters:
• The Servlet Request class includes methods that allow you to read
the names and values of parameters that are included in a client
request.
Example: “index.html”
<html>
<body>
<form action="home" method="get">
Enter your name :
<input type="text" name="name"><br>
<input type="submit" value="OK">
</body>
</html>
import javax.servlet.http.*; “ReadingPar.java”
import javax.servlet.*;
import java.io.*;
public class ReadingPar extends HttpServlet{
public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req,HttpServletResponse
res)throws ServletException,IOException
{
res.setContentType("text/html");
PrintWriter pw=res.getWriter();
String name=req.getParameter("name");
pw.println("Welcome "+name);
}}
Compilation:
Javac ReadingPar.java
After compiling the java file, paste the class file of servlet in
WEB-INF/classes directory.
“web.xml”
<web-app>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>SPrg2</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>ReadingPar</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>SPrg2</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/home</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
Example: “index.html”
<html>
<head>
<title>Calculator</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="/SPrg3/evaluate" method="post" name="frm">
Enter num1:<input name="txt1" type="text" /><br>
Enter num2:<input name="txt2" type="text" /><br>
Operator
<select name="op">
<option value="+">Addition</option>
<option value="-">Subtraction</option>
<option value="*">multiplication</option>
<option value="/">division</option>
<option value="%">remainder</option>
</select><br>
<input type="submit" value="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
“Calculator.java”
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
public class Calculator extends HttpServlet {
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse
response)
throws ServletException, IOException {
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
String n1 = request.getParameter("txt1");
String n2 = request.getParameter("txt2");
String op = request.getParameter("op");
if(op.equals("+")){
out.println("SUM IS :" +(Integer.parseInt(n1) + Integer.parseInt(n2)));
}
else if(op.equals("-")){
out.println("SUB IS :" +(Integer.parseInt(n1) - Integer.parseInt(n2)));
}
else if(op.equals("*")){
out.println("MUL IS :" +(Integer.parseInt(n1) * Integer.parseInt(n2)));
}
else if(op.equals("%")){
out.println("MOD IS :" +(Integer.parseInt(n1) % Integer.parseInt(n2)));
}
else{
out.println("DIV IS :" +(Integer.parseInt(n1) / Integer.parseInt(n2)));
}
} }
“web.xml”
<web-app>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>SPrg3</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>Calculator</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>SPrg3</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/evaluate</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
