Dinesh on Java

Categories: Servlet

Class HttpServlet

The HttpServlet class extends the GenericServlet class and implements Serializable interface. It provides http specific methods such as doGet, doPost, doHead, doTrace etc. The javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet class is a slightly more advanced base class than the GenericServlet.The HttpServlet class reads the HTTP request, and determines if the request is an HTTP GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD etc. and calls one the corresponding method.

Similar to the GenericServlet class this class is also abstract and we extend it make the SubClass work like a servlet. The SubClass must override one of the following methods:-

doGet() – for HTTP GET requests
doPost() – for HTTP POST requests
doDelete() – for HTTP DELETE requests
doPut() – for HTTP PUT requests
init()/destroy() – for managing the resources during the life of the servlet
getServletInfo() – this method is used by the servlet to provide information about itself

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service() method of HTTPServlet class is not abstract as was the case in the GenericServlet class and there is hardly any need to override that method as by default it contains the capability of deciding the type of the HTTP request it receives and based on that it calls the specific method to do the needful. For example, if an HTTP GET request calls the servlet then the service nethod of the HTTPServlet class determines the request type (it’ll find it to be GET) and subsequently calls doGet() method to serve the request.

Methods of HttpServlet class

public void service(ServletRequest req,ServletResponse res) dispatches the request to the protected service method by converting the request and response object into http type.
protected void service(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) receives the request from the service method, and dispatches the request to the doXXX() method depending on the incoming http request type.
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) handles the GET request. It is invoked by the web container.
protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) handles the POST request. It is invoked by the web container.
protected void doHead(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) handles the HEAD request. It is invoked by the web container.
protected void doOptions(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) handles the OPTIONS request. It is invoked by the web container.
protected void doPut(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) handles the PUT request. It is invoked by the web container.
protected void doTrace(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) handles the TRACE request. It is invoked by the web container.
protected void doDelete(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res) handles the DELETE request. It is invoked by the web container.
protected long getLastModified(HttpServletRequest req) returns the time when HttpServletRequest was last modified since midnight January 1, 1970 GMT.

To respond to e.g. HTTP GET requests only, you will extend the HttpServlet class, and override the doGet() method only. Here is an example:

public class SimpleHttpServlet extends HttpServlet {

  protected void doGet( HttpServletRequest request,
                        HttpServletResponse response)
        throws ServletException, IOException {

      response.getWriter().write("<html><body>GET response</body></html>");
  }
}

If you want to handle both GET and POST request from a given servlet, you can override both methods, and have one call the other. Here is how:

public class SimpleHttpServlet extends HttpServlet {

  protected void doGet( HttpServletRequest request,
                        HttpServletResponse response)
        throws ServletException, IOException {

      doPost(request, response);
  }

  protected void doPost( HttpServletRequest request,
                         HttpServletResponse response)
        throws ServletException, IOException {

      response.getWriter().write("GET/POST response");
    }
}

I would recommend you to use the HttpServlet instead of the GenericServlet whenever possible. HttpServlet is easier to work with, and has more convenience methods than GenericServlet.

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Dinesh Rajput

Dinesh Rajput is the chief editor of a website Dineshonjava, a technical blog dedicated to the Spring and Java technologies. It has a series of articles related to Java technologies. Dinesh has been a Spring enthusiast since 2008 and is a Pivotal Certified Spring Professional, an author of a book Spring 5 Design Pattern, and a blogger. He has more than 10 years of experience with different aspects of Spring and Java design and development. His core expertise lies in the latest version of Spring Framework, Spring Boot, Spring Security, creating REST APIs, Microservice Architecture, Reactive Pattern, Spring AOP, Design Patterns, Struts, Hibernate, Web Services, Spring Batch, Cassandra, MongoDB, and Web Application Design and Architecture. He is currently working as a technology manager at a leading product and web development company. He worked as a developer and tech lead at the Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd and was the first developer in his previous company, Paytm. Dinesh is passionate about the latest Java technologies and loves to write technical blogs related to it. He is a very active member of the Java and Spring community on different forums. When it comes to the Spring Framework and Java, Dinesh tops the list!