So, lets get started!!!
The doXXX Methods
There are 3 main types of requests that get processed by a Servlet. They are:
• Get
• Post
• Put
Each of them have a corresponding doXXX() method in the Servlet class which would be:
• doGet
• doPost
• doPut
In the exam you can expect many questions related to this topic so pay attention!!!
These methods are called by the service method in your Servlet.
Let us now take a look at a sample Servlet that has these 3 doXXX methods.
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
/**
* A servlet that has the 3 doXXX Methods
*
* @author Anand
*/
public class OurSecondServlet extends HttpServlet
{
// doGet()
public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws IOException, ServletException
{
requestType("GET", response);
}
// doPost()
public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws IOException, ServletException
{
requestType("POST", response);
}
// doPut()
public void doPut(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws IOException, ServletException
{
requestType("PUT", response);
}
public void requestType(String requestType,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws IOException, ServletException
{
response.setContentType("text/html");
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
out.println("< html >");
out.println("< head >");
out.println("< title >Our Second Servlet" +
"< / title >");
out.println("< / head >");
out.println("< body >");
out.println("< h1 >Servlet Request< / h1 >");
out.println("The Submitted Request type is : " + requestType);
out.println("< / body >");
out.println("< / html >");
}
}
How this code works?
As you can see, we have 3 different doXXX methods in our servlet, each of them calling the same method with just one parameter that differentiates them. Ideally in most cases, our code would be like this too. The logic that gets executed is mostly the same irrespective of the type of request submission. So, the doXXX methods, just receive the request, add some identifier that can be used to identify what request is submitted and then calls another method which will eventually be called by the other doXXX methods too.
The delegate method does the actual processing and returns the results.
In this case, based on the doXXX method calling it, the output will be different. If you submit using the GET option, you will get the below screen:
As mentioned earlier, the service method would invoke the appropriate doXXX method based on the request submission type. But, if you are curious and wonder how the code for such a service method would look like, well, you don't have to search anymore. Here is how it would look:
protected void service(HttpServletRequest req,
HttpServletResponse resp)
throws ServletException, IOException
{
String method = req.getMethod();
if (method.equals(METHOD_GET))
{
// Call doGet
doGet(req, resp);
} else if (method.equals(METHOD_POST))
{
// call doPost
doPost(req, resp);
} else if (method.equals(METHOD_PUT))
{
// call doPut
doPut(req, resp);
} else
{
// Our Servlet doesn't currently support
// other types of request.
String errMsg = "Method Not Supported");
resp.sendError(
HttpServletResponse.SC_NOT_IMPLEMENTED, errMsg);
}
}
Previous Chapter: Chapter 6 - Servlet Handling of Http Request
Next Chapter: Chapter 8 - Servlet Request Types
