Java Servlet

This programming API defines the expected interactions of a web container and a servlet. A web container is essentially the component of a web server that interacts with the servlets. The web container is responsible for mapping a URL to a particular servlet and ensuring that the URL requester has the correct access rights.

A servlet is an object that receives requests and generates a response based on the request. The API defines HTTP subclasses of the generic servlet requests and responses as well as an HTTP session object that tracks multiple requests and responses between the web server and a client. Servlets may be packaged as a Web application[?].

Moreover, servlets can be generated automatically by Java Server Pages (JSP), or alternately by template engines such as WebMacro.

Web Containers

Like the other java APIs, different vendors provide their own implementation. Below is a list of some of the free and commercial web containers.

Non-commercial Web Containers

• Jetty Web Server (http://jetty.mortbay.com)
• Enhydra Web Server (http://www.enhydra.org)
• jo! Web Server (http://www.tagtraum.com)
• Tomcat (http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat) is web container licensed under the Apache Software License. It is used in the official reference implementation.

Commercial Web Containers

• Caucho's Resin Server (http://www.caucho.com)
• BEA Weblogic Server or Weblogic Express (http://www.bea.com/products/servers_application.shtml)
• Borland's Enterprise Server (http://www.borland.com/bes/appserver)
• Oracle Application Server (http://technet.oracle.com/products/ias/content)
• IBM's Web Sphere (http://www-3.ibm.com/software/info1/websphere/index.jsp)
• Sun/Netscape iPlanet Webserver (http://www.iplanet.com)

External links

• Sun's tutorial http://java.sun.com/j2ee/tutorial/1_3-fcs/doc/Servlets
• Sun's product description http://java.sun.com/products/servlet
• Java Documentation of the API may be found at http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/2.3/javadoc/index