Java Part-10 [Servlets]

Servlets

91. What is a Servlet ? 

The servlet is a Java programming language class used to process client requests and generate dynamic web content. Servlets are mostly used to process or store data submitted by an HTML form, provide dynamic content and manage state information that does not exist in the stateless HTTP protocol.

92. Explain the architechure of a Servlet. 

The core abstraction that must be implemented by all servlets is the javax.servlet.Servlet interface. Each servlet must implement it either directly or indirectly, either by extending javax.servlet.GenericServlet or javax.servlet.http.HTTPServlet. Finally, each servlet is able to serve multiple requests in parallel using multithreading.

93. What is the difference between an Applet and a Servlet ?

 An Applet is a client side java program that runs within a Web browser on the client machine. On the other hand, a servlet is a server side component that runs on the web server.An applet can use the user interface classes, while a servlet does not have a user interface. Instead, a servlet waits for client’s HTTP requests and generates a response in every request.

94. What is the difference between GenericServlet and HttpServlet ?

 GenericServlet is a generalized and protocol-independent servlet that implements the Servlet and ServletConfig interfaces. Those servlets extending the GenericServlet class shall override the service method. Finally, in order to develop an HTTP servlet for use on the Web that serves requests using the HTTP protocol, your servlet must extend the HttpServlet instead. Check Servlet examples here.

95. Explain the life cycle of a Servlet.

 On every client’s request, the Servlet Engine loads the servlets and invokes its init methods, in order for the servlet to be initialized. Then, the Servlet object handles all subsequent requests coming from that client, by invoking the service method for each request separately. Finally, the servlet is removed by calling the server’s destroy method.

96. What is the difference between doGet() and doPost() ? 

doGET: The GET method appends the name-value pairs on the request’s URL. Thus, there is a limit on the number of characters and subsequently on the number of values that can be used in a client’s request. Furthermore, the values of the request are made visible and thus, sensitive information must not be passed in that way. doPOST: The POST method overcomes the limit imposed by the GET request, by sending the values of the request inside its body. Also, there is no limitations on the number of values to be sent across. Finally, the sensitive information passed through a POST request is not visible to an external client.

97. What is meant by a Web Application ? 

A Web application is a dynamic extension of a Web or application server. There are two types of web applications: presentation-oriented and service-oriented. A presentation-oriented Web application generates interactive web pages, which contain various types of markup language and dynamic content in response to requests. On the other hand, a service-oriented web application implements the endpoint of a web service. In general, a Web application can be seen as a collection of servlets installed under a specific subset of the server’s URL namespace.

98. What is a Server Side Include (SSI) ? 

Server Side Includes (SSI) is a simple interpreted server-side scripting language, used almost exclusively for the Web, and is embedded with a servlet tag. The most frequent use of SSI is to include the contents of one or more files into a Web page on a Web server. When a Web page is accessed by a browser, the Web server replaces the servlet tag in that Web page with the hyper text generated by the corresponding servlet.

99. What is Servlet Chaining ?

 Servlet Chaining is the method where the output of one servlet is sent to a second servlet. The output of the second servlet can be sent to a third servlet, and so on. The last servlet in the chain is responsible for sending the response to the client.

100. How do you find out what client machine is making a request to your servlet ? 

The ServletRequest class has functions for finding out the IP address or host name of the client machine. getRemoteAddr() gets the IP address of the client machine and getRemoteHost() gets the host name of the client machine.