Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION     xvii

Who Should Read This Book     viii
Conventions     xix
About the Web Site     xx

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS     xxi
ABOUT THE AUTHORS     xxii Chapter 1: USING AND DEPLOYING WEB APPLICATIONS     2

1.1     Purpose of Web Applications 3
1.2     Structure of Web Applications 5
1.3     Registering Web Applications with the Server 9
1.4     Development and Deployment Strategies 14
1.5     The Art of WAR: Bundling Web
1.6     Building a Simple Web Application 18
1.7     Sharing Data Among Web Applications 25


Chapter 2: CONTROLLING WEB APPLICATION BEHAVIOR WITH WEB.XML     34

2.1     Purpose of the Deployment Descriptor 35
2.2     Defining the Header and the Root Element 36
2.3     The Elements of web.xml 37
2.4     Assigning Names and Custom URLs 42
2.5     Disabling the Invoker Servlet 52
2.6     Initializing and Preloading Servlets and JSP Pages 56
2.7     Declaring Filters 68
2.8     Specifying Welcome Pages 71
2.9     Designating Pages to Handle Errors 72
2.10   Providing Security 78
2.11   Controlling Session Timeouts 83
2.12   Documenting Web Applications 84
2.13   Associating Files with MIME Types 85
2.14   Configuring JSP Pages 86
2.15   Configuring Character Encoding 93
2.16   Designating Application Event Listeners 93
2.17   Developing for the Clustered Environment 95
2.18   J2EE Elements 97

Chapter 3: DECLARATIVE SECURITY     104

3.1     Form-Based Authentication 106
3.2     Example: Form-Based Authentication 122
3.3     BASIC Authentication 143
3.4     Example: BASIC Authentication 147
3.5     Configuring Tomcat to Use SSL 156
3.6     WebClient: Talking to Web Servers Interactively 164
3.7     Signing a Server Certificate 167

Chapter 4: PROGRAMMATIC SECURITY     178

4.1     Combining Container-Managed and Programmatic Security 180
4.2     Example: Combining Container-Managed and Programmatic Security 183
4.3     Handling All Security Programmatically 188
4.4     Example: Handling All Security Programmatically 190
4.5     Using Programmatic Security with SSL 195
4.6     Example: Programmatic Security and SSL 197

Chapter 5: SERVLET AND JSP FILTERS     202

5.1     Creating Basic Filters 204
5.2     Example: A Reporting Filter 210
5.3     Accessing the Servlet Context from Filters 217
5.4     Example: A Logging Filter 218
5.5     Using Filter Initialization Parameters 221
5.6     Example: An Access Time Filter 223
5.7     Blocking the Response 226
5.8     Example: A Prohibited-Site Filter 227
5.9     Modifying the Response 234
5.10   Example: A Replacement Filter 237
5.11   Example: A Compression Filter 245
5.12   Configuring Filters to Work with RequestDispatcher 251
5.13   Example: Plugging a Potential Security Hole 253
5.14   The Complete Filter Deployment Descriptor 260

Chapter 6: THE APPLICATION EVENTS FRAMEWORK 266

6.1     Monitoring Creation and Destruction of the Servlet Context 270
6.2     Example: Initializing Commonly Used Data 271
6.3     Detecting Changes in Servlet Context Attributes 277
6.4     Example: Monitoring Changes to Commonly Used Data 278
6.5     Packaging Listeners with Tag Libraries 288
6.6     Example: Packaging the Company Name Listeners 290
6.7     Recognizing Session Creation and Destruction 297
6.8     Example: A Listener That Counts Sessions 298
6.9     Watching for Changes in Session Attributes 306
6.10   Example: Monitoring Yacht Orders 307
6.11   Identifying Servlet Request Initialization and Destruction 314
6.12   Example: Calculating Server Request Load 315
6.13   Watching Servlet Request for Attribute Changes 322
6.14   Example: Stopping Request Frequency Collection 323
6.15   Using Multiple Cooperating Listeners 325
6.16   The Complete Events Deployment Descriptor 339

Chapter 7: TAG LIBRARIES: THE BASICS     346

7.1     Tag Library Components 348
7.2     Example: Simple Prime Tag 353
7.3     Assigning Attributes to Tags 357
7.4     Example: Prime Tag with Variable Length 359
7.5     Including Tag Body in the Tag Output 362
7.6     Example: Heading Tag 364
7.7     Example: Debug Tag 368
7.8     Creating Tag Files 371
7.9     Example: Simple Prime Tag Using Tag Files 372
7.10   Example: Prime Tag with Variable Length Using Tag Files 374
7.11   Example: Heading Tag Using Tag Files 376

Chapter 8: TAG LIBRARIES: ADVANCED FEATURES     378

8.1     Manipulating Tag Body 380
8.2     Example: HTML-Filtering Tag 381
8.3     Assigning Dynamic Values to Tag Attributes 385
8.4     Example: Simple Looping Tag 387
8.5     Assigning Complex Objects as Values to Tag Attributes 391
8.6     Example: Table Formatting Tag 393
8.7     Creating Looping Tags 398
8.8     Example: ForEach Tag 399
8.9     Creating Expression Language Functions 404
8.10   Example: Improved Debug Tag 407
8.11   Handling Nested Custom Tags 410
8.12   Example: If-Then-Else Tag 412

Chapter 9: JSP STANDARD TAG LIBRARY (JSTL)     418

9.1     Installation of JSTL 420
9.2     c:out Tag 421
9.3     c:forEach and c:forTokens Tags 422
9.4     c:if Tag 424
9.5     c:choose Tag 425
9.6     c:set and c:remove Tags 427
9.7     c:import Tag 430
9.8     c:url and c:param Tags 433
9.9     c:redirect Tag 435
9.10   c:catch Tag 437

Chapter 10: THE STRUTS FRAMEWORK: BASICS     440

10.1     Understanding Struts 441
10.2     Setting Up Struts 446
10.3     The Struts Flow of Control and the Six Steps to Implementing It 450
10.4     Processing Requests with Action Objects 458
10.5     Handling Request Parameters with Form Beans 481
10.6     Prepopulating and Redisplaying Input Forms 504

Chapter 11: THE STRUTS FRAMEWORK: DOING MORE     538

11.1     Using Properties Files 539
11.2     Internationalizing Applications 554
11.3     Laying Out Pages with Tiles 558
11.4     Using Tiles Definitions 582

Chapter 12: THE STRUTS FRAMEWORK: VALIDATING USER INPUT     592

12.1     Validating in the Action Class 594
12.2     Validating in the Form Bean 607
12.3     Using the Automatic Validation Framework 624

APPENDIX: DEVELOPING APPLICATIONS WITH APACHE ANT     644

A.1     Summarizing the Benefits of Ant 646
A.2     Installing and Setting Up Ant 646
A.3     Creating an Ant Project 648
A.4     Reviewing Common Ant Tasks 652
A.5     Example: Writing a Simple Ant Project 661
A.6     Using Ant to Build a Web Application 668
A.7     Example: Building a Web Application 670
A.8     Using Ant to Create a WAR File 675
A.9     Example: Creating a Web Application WAR File 679

INDEX     683

Promotional Information

The use of servlets and JSP has continued to grow at a phenomenal rate. Thetechnology of choice for developing dynamic Web sites and Web-enabledapplications, servlets and JSP provide the link between Web clients and serversideapplications. Virtually all major Web servers for Windows, Unix (includingLinux), MacOS, VMS, and mainframe operating systems now support servletand JSP technology either natively or by means of a plugin. With only a smallamount of configuration, you can run servlets and JSP in Microsoft IIS, theApache Web Server, IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic, and dozens of otherservers. This book, from best-selling authors Marty Hall and Lary Brown,provides a fantastic look at the advanced features and latest developmentregarding servlets and JSP. In the Core tradition, this book is designed toprovide experienced programmers with the essential information they need tolearn and apply the latest, most important technologies.

About the Author

Marty Hall is president of coreservlets.com, Inc., a small company that provides training courses and consulting services related to server-side Java technology. He also teaches Java and Web programming in the Johns Hopkins University part-time graduate program in Computer Science, where he directs the Distributed Computing and Web Technology concentration areas. Marty is the author of five previous books from Prentice Hall and Sun Microsystems Press: the first and second editions of Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages, More Servlets and JavaServer Pages, and the first and second editions of Core Web Programming. You can reach Marty at hall@coreservlets.com; you can find out about his J2EE training courses (JSP, servlets, Struts, JSF, Ajax, Java 5, Java 6, Ruby on Rails, etc.) at http://courses.coreservlets.com/. Larry Brown is an IT manager at a U.S. Navy Research and Development laboratory. He is the coauthor of the second editions of Core Web Programming, also from Prentice Hall and Sun Microsystems Press. You can reach Larry at brown@coreservlets.com. Yaakov Chaikin is a senior consultant at a software development company based in Columbia, MD. Besides his day job, he teaches Web development technologies at the graduate Computer Science program of Loyola College in Maryland, where he heads the Web Development track. At times, he also helps his wife with her web/graphic design business, tbiq.com. Yaakov can be reached at yaakov.chaikin@gmail.com.