An Overview of servlet and JSP Technology
1. Servlet‘s Job
Servlets are Java programs that run on Web or application servers, acting as a
middle layer between requests coming from Web browsers or other HTTP clients and
databases
or applications on the http server. their job is to perform the following
tasks, as illustrated in Figure 1-1.
The end user normally enters this data in an HTML form on a Web page.
a custom HTTP client
from an applet
However, the data could also come
program.
or
Figure 1-1 shows a single arrow going from the client to the Web server(the
layer where servlets and JSP execute), but there are really two varieties of data: the
explicit data that the end user enters in a form and the behind-the-scenes HTTP
information. Both varieties are critical. The HTTP information includes cookies,
information about media types and compression schemes the browser understands,
and so on.
This process may require talking to a database, executing an RMI or EJB call,
invoking a Web service, or computing the response directly. Your real data may be in
a relational database. Fine.But your database probably doesn't speak HTTP
or
return results in HTML, so the Web browser can't talk directly to the database. Even if
it could, for security reasons, you probably would not want it to. The same argument
applies to most other applications. You need the Web middle layer to extract the
incoming data from the HTTP stream, talk to the application, and embed the results
inside a document.
This document can be sent in a variety of formats, including text(HTML or
XML), binary(GIF images), or even a compressed format like gzip that is layered on
top of some other underlying format. But, HTML is by far the most common format,
so an important servlet/JSP task is to wrap the results inside of HTML
Figure 1-1 shows a single arrow going from the Web middle layer (the servlet or
JSP page)to the client. But, there are really two varieties of data sent: the document
itself and the behind-the-scenes HTTP information. Again, both varieties are critical
to effective development. sending HTTP response data involves telling the browser or
other client what type of document is being returned(e.g, HTML), setting cookies and
caching parameters, and other such tasks.
2. Why Build Web Pages Dynamically
Many client requests can be satisfied by prebuilt documents, and the server
would handle these requests without invoking servlets. In many cases, however, a
static result is not sufficient, and a page needs to be generated for each request. There
are a number of reasons why Web pages need to be built on-the-fly
For instance, the results page from search engines and order-confirmation pages
at online stores are specific to particular user requests. You don' t know what to
display until you read the data that the user submits. Just remember that the user
submits two kinds of data: explicit (i.e, HTML form data) and implicit(i.e., http
request
headers). Either kind of input can be used to build the output page.In
particular, it is quite common to build a user-specific page based on a cookie value.
If the page changes for every request, then you certainly need to build the
response at request time. If it changes only periodically, however, you could do it two
ways: you could periodically build a new Web page on the server(independently of
client requests), or you could wait and only build the page when the user requests it.
The right approach depends on the situation, but sometimes it is more convenient to
do the latter: wait for the user request. For example, a weather report or news
headlines site might build the pages dynamically, perhaps returning a previously built
page if that page is still up to date.
If the information is in a database, you need server-side processing even if the
client is using dynamic Web content such as an applet. Imagine using an applet by
itself for a search engine site: " Downloading 50 terabyte applet, please wait!
"Obviously, that is silly: you need to talk to the database. Going from the client to the
Web tier to the database ( a three-tier approach)instead of from an applet directly to a
database (a two-tier approach) provides increased flexibility and security with little or
no performance penalty. After all,the database call is usually the rate-limiting step, so
going through the Web server does not slow things down. In fact, a three-tier
approach is often faster because the middle tier can perform caching and connection
pooling.
In principle, servlets are not restricted to web or application servers that handle
HTTP requests but can be used for other types of servers as well. For example,
servlets could be embedded in FTP or mail servers to extend their functionality. And,
a servlet API for SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) servers was recently standardized
(see http: //jcp.org/en/j/detail?id=116). In practice,however,this use of servlets has not
caught on, and we'll only be discussing HTTP servlets
3. The Advantages of Servlets Over"Traditional"CGI
Java servlets are more efficient, easier to use, more powerful, more portable,
safer, and cheaper than traditional CGI and many alternative CGI-like technologies.
With traditional CGI, a new process is started
for each HTTP request. If the
CGI program itself is relatively short, the overhead of starting the process can
dominate the execution time. With servlets, the Java virtual machine stays running
and handles each request with a lightweight Java thread, not a heavyweight operating
system process Similarly, in traditional CGI, if there are N requests to the same CGI
program, the code for the CGI program is loaded into memory N times. With servlets,
however, there would be N threads, but only a single copy of the servlet class would
be loaded.This approach reduces server memory requirements and saves time by
instantiating fewer objects. Finally, when a CGI program finishes handling a request,
the program terminates This approach makes it difficult to cache computations, keep
database connections open, and perform other optimizations that rely on persistent
data. Servlets, however, remain in memory even after they complete a response, so it
is straightforward to store arbitrarily complex data between client requests
Servlets have an extensive infrastructure for automatically parsing and
decoding HTML form data, reading and
setting HTTP headers, handling cookies,
tracking sessions and many other such high-level utilities. In CGI, you have to do
much of this yourself. Besides, if you already know the Java programming language,
why learn Perl too? You're already convinced that Java technology makes for more
reliable and reusable code than does Visual Basic, VBScript, or C++. Why go back to
those languages for server-side programming.
Servlets support several capabilities that are difficult or
impossible to
accomplish with regular CGI. Servlets can talk directly to the Web server, whereas
regular CGI programs cannot, at
least not without using a server-specific API.
Communicat with the Web server makes it easier to translate relative URLS into
concrete path names, for instance. Multiple servlets can also share data, making it
resource-sharing
easy to implement database connection pooling and similar
optimizations. Servlets can also maintain information from request
to request,
simplifying techniques like session tracking and caching of previous computations.
Servlets are written in the Java programming language and follow a standard API.
Servlets are supported directly or by a plugin on virtually every major Web server.
Consequently servlets written for, say, Macromedia JRun can run virtually unchanged
on Apache Tomcat, Microsoft Internet Information Server(with a separate plugin),
IBM WebSphere, iPlanet Enterprise Server, Oracle9i AS, or StarNine WebStar. They
are
http:
//java.sun.com/j2ee/), so industry
support for servlets is becoming even more
pervasive.
Platform, Enterprise Edition(J2EE;see
Java
2
part
of
the
A number of free or very inexpensive Web servers are good for development
use or deployment of low-or medium-volume Web sites. Thus, with servlets and JSP
you can start with a free or inexpensive server and migrate to more expensive servers
with high-performance capabilities or advanced administration utilities only after your
project meets initial success. This is in contrast to many of the other CGI alternatives,
which require a significant initial investment for the purchase ofa proprietary package.
Price and portability are somewhat connected. For example, Marty tries to
keep track of the countries of readers that send him questions by email. India was near
the top of the list, probably #2 behind the U.S. Marty also taught one of his JSP and
servlet training courses (see http://courses.coreservlets.com)in Manila, and there was
great interest in servlet and JSP technology there.
Now, why are India and the Philippines both so interested? We surmise
that the answer is twofold. First, both countries have large pools of well-educated
software developers. Second, both countries have (or had, at
time) highly
unfavorable currency exchange rates against
the U.S. dollar. So, buying a
special-purpose Web server from a U.S. company consumed a large part of early
project t funds.
that
But, with servlets and JSP, they could start with a free server; Apache
Tomcat (either standalone, embedded in the regular Apache Web server, or embedded
in Microsoft IIS). Once the project starts to become successful, they could move to a
server like Caucho
Resin that had higher performance and easier administration
but that is not free. But none of their servlets or JSP pages have to be rewritten. If
their project becomes even larger, they might want to move to a distributed (clustered)
environment.No problem: they could move to Macromedia JRun Professional, which
supports distributed applications (Web farms). Again, none of their servlets or JSP
pages have to be rewritten. If the project becomes quite large and complex, they might
want to use Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) to encapsulate their business logic. So, they
might switch to BEA WebLogic or Oracle9i AS. Again, none of their servlets or JSP
pages have to be rewritten. Finally, if their project becomes even bigger, they might
move it off of their Linux box and onto an IBM mainframe running IBM WebSphere.
But once again, none of their servlets or JSP pages have to be rewritten
One of the main sources of vulnerabilities in traditional CGI stems from
the fact that the programs are often executed by general-purpose operating system
shells. So, the CGI programmer must be careful to filter out characters such as
backquotes and semicolons that are treated specially by the shell. Implementing this
precaution is harder than one might think, and weaknesses stemming from this
problem are constantly being uncovered in widely used CGI libraries.
A second source of problems is the fact
that some CGI programs are
processed by languages that do not automatically check array or string bounds. For
example, in C and C++ it is perfectly legal to allocate a 100-element array and then
write into the 999th "element," which is really some random part of program memory.
So, programmers who forget to perform this check open up their system to deliberate
or accidental buffer overflow attacks.
Servlets suffer from neither of these problems. Even if a servlet executes
a system call (e.g., with Runtime. exec or JNI) to invoke a program on the local
operating system, it does not use a shell to do so. And, of course, array bounds
checking and other memory protection features are a central part of the Java
programming language.
There are a lot of good technologies out there. But if vendors don't support them
and developers don't know how to use them, what good are they? Servlet and JSP
technology is supported by servers from Apache, Oracle, IBM, Sybase, BEA,
Macromedia, Caucho, Sun/iPlanet, New Atlanta, ATG, Fujitsu, Lutris, Silverstream,
the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C), and many others. Several low-cost plugins
add support to Microsoft IIS and Zeus as well. They run on Windows, Unix/Linux,
MacOS, VMS, and IBM mainframe operating systems. They are the single most
popular application of the Java programming language. They are arguably the most
popular choice for developing medium to large Web applications. They are used by
the airline industry (most United Airlines and Delta Airlines Web sites), e-commerce
(ofoto. com), online banking ( First USA Bank, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico), Web
search engines/portals large financial
sites (American Century Investments), and
hundreds of other sites that you visit every day.
Of course, popularity alone is no proof of good technology. Numerous
counter-examples abound. But our point is that you are not experimenting with a new
and unproven technology when you work with server-side Java.
Servert 和 JSP 技术简述
一、 Servlet 的功能
Servlets 是运行在 Web 或应用服务器上的 Java 程序,它是一个中间
层,负责连接来自 Web 浏览器或其他 HTTP 客户程序的请求和 HTTP 服务器上的数
据库或应用程序。Servlet 的工作是执行下面的任务,如图 1.1 所示。
最终用户一般在页面的 HTML 表单中输入这些数据。然而,数据还有
可能来自 applet 或定制的 HTTP 客户程序。
图 1.1 中显示了一条从客户端到 Web 服务器的单箭头,但实际上从客
户端传送到 Web 服务器的数据有两种,它们分别为用户在表单中输入的显式数据,
以及后台的 HTTP 信息。两种数据都很重要。HTTP 信息包括 cookie、浏览器所能
识别的媒体类型和压缩模式等。
这个过程可能需要访问数据库、执行 RMI 或 EJB 调用、调用 Web 服务,
或者直接计算得出对应的响应。实际的数据可能存储在关系型数据库中。该数据
库可能不理解 HTTP, 或者不;能返回 HTML 形式的结果,所有 Web 浏览器不能直接
与数据库进行会话。即使它能够做到这一点,为了安全上的考虑,我们也不希望
让它这么做。对应大多数其他应用程序,也存在类似的问题。因此,我们需要
Web 中间层从 HTTP 流中提取输入数据,与应用程序会话,并将结果嵌入到文档
中。
这个文档可以用各种格式发送,包括文本(HTML 或 XML),二进制(GIF
图),甚至可以式建立在其他底层格式之上的压缩格式,如 gzip.但是,到目前为
止,HTML 式最常用的格式,故而 servelt 和 JSP 的重要任务之一就式将结果包
装到 HTML 中。
图 1.1 中显示了一条从 Web 中间层到客户端的单箭头。但是,实际发送的数
据有两种:文档本身,以及后台的 HTTP 信息。同样,两种数据对开发来说都式至
关重要的。HTTP 响应数据的发送过程涉及告知浏览器或其他客户程序所返回文
档的类型(如 HTML),设置 cookie 和缓存参数,以及其他类似的任务。
二、 动态构建网页的原因
预先建立的文档可以满足客户的许多请求,服务器无需调用 servlet
就可以处理这些请求。然而,许多情况下静态的结果不能满足要求,我们需要针
对每个请求生成一个页面。实时构建页面的理由有很多种:
搜索引擎生成的页面,以及在线商店的订单确认页面,都要针对特定
的用户请求而产生。在没有读取到用户提交的数据之前,我们不知道应该显示什
么。要记住,用户提交两种类型的数据:显示(即 HTML 表单的数据)和隐式(即 HTTP
请求的报头)。两种输入都可用来构建输出页面。基于 cookie 值针对具体用户构
建页面的情况尤其普遍。
如果页面需要根据每个具体的请求做出相应的改变,当然需要在请求
发生时构建响应。但是,如果页面周期性地改变,我们可以用两种方式来处理它:
周期性地在服务器上构建新的页面(和客户请求无关),或者仅仅在用户请求该页
面时再构建。具体应该采用哪种方式要根据具体情况而定,但后一种方式常常更
为方便,因为它只需简单地等待用户的请求。例如,天气预报或新闻网站可能会
动态地构建页面,也有可能会返回之前构建的页面(如果它还是最新的话)。
如果数据存储在数据库中,那么,即使客户端使用动态 Web 内容,比
如 applet,我们依旧需要执行服务器端处理。想象以下,如果一个搜索引擎网站
完全使用 applet, 那么用户将会看到:“正在下载 50TB 的 applet,请等待!”。
显然,这样很愚蠢;这种情况下,我们需要与数据库进行会话。从客户端到 Web
层再到数据库(三层结构),要比从 applet 直接到数据库(二层结构)更灵活,也更
安全,而性能上的损失很少甚至没有。毕竞数据库调用通常是对速度影响最大的
步骤,因而,经过中间层可以执行高速缓存和连接共享。
理论上讲,servelt 并非只用于处理 HTTP 请求的 Web 服务器或应用
服务器,它同样可以用于其他类型的服务器。例如,servlet 能够嵌入到 FTP 或
邮件服务器中,护展他们的功能。而且,用于会话启动协议服务器的 servletAPI
最近已经被标准化(参见 htp://jcp.org/en/js/detail?id=116)。但在实践中,