Basic Java Servlet/JSP Web

Development
David Lucek
Lucek Consulting
www.lucek.com
dave@lucek.com

May 13th, 2003 @2003 Lucek Consulting

Download the Sample Application

 Download from www.lucek.com, select the

downloads tab
 Includes the full source
 Unzip to c:\ drive or $HOME/lucek

May 13th, 2003

What is a Servlet?
 Java Servlets/JSP are part of the Sun’s J2EE
Enterprise Architecture
– The web development part
 Java Servlet
– is a simple, consistent mechanism for extending the
functionality of a web server
– Are precompiled Java programs that are executed on the
server side.
– Require a Servlet container to run in
 Latest Servlet Spec is 2.3

May 13th, 2003

What is a Java Server Page (JSP)
 Java Server Pages (JSP)
– A simplified, fast way to create dynamic web content
– HTML or XML pages with embedded Java Code or
Java Beans
– Can be a mix of template data in HTML/XML with
some dynamic content
– A JSP is a complied to a Java Servlet automatically
by the Servlet container, it is then cached
 Latest JSP Spec is 1.2

May 13th, 2003

Why Use Servlets?
 Work well in a Heterogeneous Environments
– OS and platform neutral
– Work with all major web servers (IIS, Apache,etc..)
 Well defined Web Architecture framework
– Standard built in services such as:
 Standard Approach to Authentication using declarative security
vice programmatic security
 Database connection pooling
 Complete support for sessions via cookies and/or URL re-writing
– Has automatic fallback to URL re-writing

May 13th, 2003

Why Use Servlets Con’t?
– Robust Object-Orientated API in Java language
 Ever try to maintain a large ASP, Perl, or PHP site 
 Clean separation of Controller/Logic from
Presentation
 Efficient, scales very well
 There are good free Servlet/JSP containers
and connectors
– That run under both UNIX and win32

May 13th, 2003

J2EE Web Application Components
 Java Servlets
– Extend off of HttpServlet
 JSP pages, normally for Presentation
 Java Beans
– Normally used as value objects, pass to data to JSPs
 Tag Libraries – XML based JSP elements
 Web Deployment Descriptor
– /web-inf/web.xml

May 13th, 2003

Web Deployment Descriptor
 /web-inf/web.xml
– Part of the standard
– Defines servlets used in the web application
– Maps servlets to URLs
– A servlet can map to many URLs
 Defines resources available to the web app
 Defines security constraints
 Defines other stuff like
– Welcome file list
– Session timeout
– Error page mapping

May 13th, 2003

J2EE Web Directory Structure 1
 Top Directory is normally the context Path
– /tomcat/webapps/servletdemo
– Normally, the URL would be http://localhost:8080/servletdemo
– Contains JSP and other static content plus the web-inf
directory
 /web-inf directory
– This is a protected directory, can not point browser to any file
in this directory
– /classes – unpacked web application classes, auto-magically
added to CLASS_PATH
– /lib – web application JAR files
– /taglib – tag library descriptor files
May 13th, 2003
J2EE Web Directory Structure 2

 /web-inf/web.xml
 /web-inf/*
– Would normally put any static or JSP files here
– Protects them from Direct Invocation
– Always best to call a JSP through a servlet first

May 13th, 2003

JSP Constructs 1
 Used in JSP pages, pages that end *.jsp
 Comment <%-- Comment --%>
 Declaration <%! int x = 0; %>
 Expression <%= expression %>
– Outputs to the Response stream
– Like a “printf” to the browser
– Do NOT use semi-colon to terminate the line
 Scriplets - contains Java Code
– <% code fragments %>

May 13th, 2003

JSP Constructs 2
<% if (value.getName().length != 0) { %>
<H2>The value is: <%= value.getName() %></H2>
<% } else { %>
<H2>Value is empty</H2>
<% } %>
 Implicit objects always available in the JSP Page
– “request” – Browser’s Request Object
 Use to get HTTP headers, length etc..
– “response” - HttpResponse Object

May 13th, 2003

JSP Constructs 3
– “session” – internal HttpSession Object
– “pageContext”
– “application”
– “out”, same as <%= %>
– “config” – servlet configuration
– “page”
– “exception”
 JSP Directives
– Are messages or instructions to the JSP container

May 13th, 2003

JSP Constructs 4

– Do not produce any output

– “page” directive
 <%@ page import=“com.lucek.*” %>
 Commonly used for importing class paths

– “include” directive
 <%@ include file=“header.htm” %>
 Good for including static content

– “taglib” – lists the tag library descriptor location

 Required when using tab libraries

May 13th, 2003

Java Beans as Used in Web Apps
 Normally used for all data transfers and business
components
 Similar to how Java Beans are used in Swing and
AWT
– But do not need the full implementation
 Must have no constructor or no-arg constructor
 Must have setter and getter methods for each property
value
 JSP constructs/tags use Java Beans

May 13th, 2003

JSP Actions
 JSPactions are special tags that affect the
output stream and are normally used with Java
beans
– Most commonly used:
 <jsp:useBean>, <jsp:getProperty>, <jsp:setProperty>
 The code below will display the lastName property of the
student bean on the output stream
<jsp:useBean id="student" scope="request"
class="com.lucek.dto.StudentValue" />
<jsp:getProperty name="student" property="lastName" />

May 13th, 2003

Servlet Container/Engine
 Servlets/JSP require a Container
 Apache Tomcat is the reference implementation of the
Servlet/JSP Specs
 It is open source, small, install quickly,and is FREE
 Latest Version is 4.1.24
 Web Site: jakarta.apache.org/tomcat
 It include a simple HTTP 1.1 server, good enough for
development and small intranets.

May 13th, 2003

Tomcat Install
 Requires a JDK, get 1.4.1 and install into c:\jdk
or $HOME/jdk
 Add JAVA_HOME to your environment and the
“bin” directory to your PATH
 Good practice to unpack into c:\tomcat or
$HOME/tomcat
 Add CATALINA_HOME to your environment
and the “bin” directory to your PATH

May 13th, 2003

Tomcat Directory Structure
 Everything is relative to $CATALINA_HOME
 /bin – Startup/shutdown scripts
 /conf
– Server.xml – main configuration file
 /common – common class and jar files used by Tomcat
and web applications
– Put JDBC drivers here
 /server – class and jar files used by Tomcat internally
 /shared – class and jar files for all web applications
 /webapps – This is where you put your web application
in a sub-directory or external context file.
May 13th, 2003
Starting Tomcat

 /bin/startup.bator startup.sh
 Point Browers to http://localhost:8080, should
see default page
 All the Docs are there on the default page!
 Check out the examples pages, good tutorials

May 13th, 2003

Other Development Tools 1
 Ant Build Tool
– Standard Java Build tool
– Basic on UNIX make, but much better
– Site: http://ant.apache.org
– Install in c:\ant or $HOME/ant
 Java IDE
– Try NetBeans, it is nice
– Tomcat is built in, but is an older version
– Includes full Servlet and JSP debugging
– Site: www.netbeans.org

May 13th, 2003

Other Development Tools 2

 Junit
– Standard Automated Unit Testing Tool
– Site: http://junit.sourceforge.net
 Jedit
– Slick Programmer’s Editor
– Written in Java
– Site: jedit.org

May 13th, 2003

Simple Servlet Application 1
 See “servletdemo” code
 Mount the servletdemo, servletdemo/java/src, and
servletdemo/web in NetBeans Explorer Tab
 For a Hello World Servlet look at:
– Java/src/com/lucek/action/HelloWorld.java
 To build and run
– $ cd servletdemo
– Setup the proper build variables in the build.properties file
– $ ant all
– $ ant deploy
– Point your browsers at http://localhost:8080/servletdemo

May 13th, 2003

Simple Servlet Application 2

 Look at the web.xml file and how the same

servlet can be mapped to many URLs
 Look at SimpleBean.java which should how to
pass a Java Bean to a JSP page
 Look at the different ways a bean’s value can
be obtained in the EditStudent.jsp

May 13th, 2003

Best Practices/Patterns
 Always Separate out the logic from the presentation
– Use servlets for the logic/controller and JSP’s for presentation
– Ideally should never have Java Code in the JSP page
 Have a clean separation between your data access
and controller layers (DAO)
 Always use DTO or value object
 Use a Model-View-Controller Architecture
– Do not write it, use Struts
– Site: jakarta.apache.org/struts/
 Use Unit tests
– Junit Automation via Ant build tasks
May 13th, 2003
What we have not talked about

 Allthe specific Servlet APIs

 Tag libraries
 Sessions, cookies
 JDBC service support from the container
 Container based authentication
 Lots of other stuff

May 13th, 2003

Next Presentation?

 Create a data driven web site using MySql and

Servlets/JSP
 Setup Authentication Realm with declarative
security
 Setup JDBC connection pooling
 Struts?

May 13th, 2003