Here are two chapters excerpted from Core Servlets and Java
Server Pages by Marty Hall, and published by Sun Microsystems
Press/Prentic Hall PTR. These are, Chapter 7, Generating the Server Response:
HTTP Response Headers, and Chapter 14, Creating Custom JSP Tag
Libraries.
A Note from the Author
In the past year,
there has
been a virtual stampede
toward server-side applications among developers, server vendors, and the
authors of the Java platform specifications. So much so, that
the technology is rapidly becoming the standard tool for
building
dynamic web sites, and connecting web front ends to databases and
applications on a server.
In mid-1999, I put together a short servlet and JSP tutorial
with
a few dozen examples, put it on the Web, and tried out the
material in
a couple of my courses. The response was overwhelming. After
only a
few months, I was getting several thousand visitors a day to the
tutorial along with a myriad of requests to expand the coverage
of the
material. I started
writing. Core Servlets and JavaServer
PagesTM is the result.
Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages is aimed at serious
software
developers. It is a hands-on book aimed at helping
programmers who are already convinced of the need for dynamic
web
sites, and who want to get started building them right away. In
showing how to build
these sites, I try to illustrate the most important approaches
and
warn you of the most common pitfalls. Along the way, I include
plenty
of working code: hundreds of documented examples, all of which
are freely available
online
for unrestricted use.
It is not a book that skims dozens of technologies at a high
level. Although I don't claim that it is a definitive reference
on
every technology it touches on, if the book covers a topic, it
does so
in enough detail for you to sit down and start writing real
programs. The one exception to this rule is the Java programming
language itself. Although I don't assume any familiarity with
server-side programming, you need to be familiar with the
basics of Java language development.
Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages is divided into three
parts:
Servlets, JavaServer Pages, and Supporting Technologies.
- Part I covers servlet development with the 2.1 and 2.2
specifications. Although version 2.2 (along with JSP 1.1) is
mandated
by the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition
(J2EETM), many commercial
products are still at the earlier releases, so it is important
to
understand the differences. Also, although servlet code is
portable
across a huge variety of servers and operating systems, server
setup
and configuration details are not standardized. So, I include
specific
details for Apache Tomcat, Sun's JavaServerTM Web Development Kit
(JSWDK), and the Java Web ServerTM.
The first online chapter presented here is from this section:
Chapter 7
Generating the Server Response: HTTP Response Headers. This
chapter
includes the following topics:
- How (and why) you set HTTP response headers from servlets
- The purpose of each of the HTTP 1.1 response headers
- Example 1: Persistent servlet state and auto-reloading pages
- Example 2: Using persistent HTTP connections
- Example 3: Dynamically generating GIF images
- Part II covers the use of JavaServer Pages version 1.0 and
1.1.
Topics include JSP scripting elements, structuring generated
servlets, including files and applets in JSP pages, using
JavaBeansTM technology with
JSP, creating custom tag libraries, and integrating servlets
and JSP. The ability to define your own tags is
the important new contribution of JSP 1.1,
but the process is poorly understood. Chapter 14, Creating Custom Libraries,
is presented online here. Topics in the chapter include:
- The components that make up a tag library
- Defining a basic tag
- Assigning attributes to tags
- Including the tag body
- Optionally including the tag body
- Manipulating the tag body
- Including or manipulating the tag body multiple times
- Using nested tags
- Part III covers three topics that are commonly used in
conjunction
with servlets and JSP: HTML forms, applets talking to servlets,
and
database access with JDBC technology.
- The appendix provides a handy summary
of servlet and JSP syntax and usage.
For more information see:
Core Servlets and
JavaServer
Pages home page.
Source code
archive.
All code from book available free for unrestricted use.
Complete table of contents. Also available
in PDF.
Index. Adobe acrobat (PDF) format.
Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages at amazon.com.
Free examination copies for instructors.
About the Author
Marty Hall is a Senior Computer Scientist at the Johns Hopkins
University
Applied Physics Lab, and teaches JavaTM and web programming in
the Johns
Hopkins part-time graduate program in Computer Science, and for
various
industry short courses. He is the author of the best-selling
book "Core Web
Programming."
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