Shing Wai Chan's Weblog

The JSR 315: Java Servlet 3.0 Specification expert group is in the process of making Public Review available. You can look at Rajiv's blog for more details. The reference implementation is available in GlassFish v3 nightly build. In Servlet 3.0, for ease of development, several new annotations are defined. These annotations are resided in the package javax.servlet.annotation. They are intended to provide meta data only. In other words, one still need to extend the corresponding class or implement the corresponding interface.

Now, one can have Servlet, Filter and ServletContextListener in a war file without web.xml. In this blog, I will discuss the following annotations:

• @WebServlet
• @ServletFilter
• @WebServletContextListener

Servlet Annotation ( @WebServlet )

In JSR 315, one can specify the servlet meta data by using @WebServlet. For instance,

    @WebServlet(name="mytest",
        urlPatterns={"/myurl"},
        initParams={ @InitParam(name="n1", value="v1"), @InitParam(name="n2", value="v2") })
    public class TestServlet extends javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet {
        ....
    }

In this example, the class TestServlet is a servlet as it extends HttpServlet. The @WebServlet provides the following meta data:

• the name of the servlet, mytest, corresponds to <servlet-name> under <servlet> in web.xml
• the url pattern of the servlet, /myurl, corresponds to <url-pattern> under <servlet-mapping> in web.xml
• initialization parameters of the servlet, n1=v1, n2=v2, corresponds to <init-param> under <servlet> in web.xml
    <init-param>
      <param-name>n1</param-name>
      <param-value>v1</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>n2</param-name>
      <param-value>v2</param-value>
    </init-param>
  Note that in this case, @InitParam is used to specify the name/value pairs.

Servlet Filter Annotation ( @ServletFilter )

One can specify the servlet filter meta data by using @ServletFilter. For instance,

    @ServletFilter(urlPatterns={"/myurl"}.
        initParams={ @InitParam(name="mesg", value="my filter") })
    public class TestFilter implements javax.servlet.Filter {
        ....
        public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) throws ServletException {
            ....
        }

        public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res, FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
            ....
        }

        public void destroy() {
            ....
        }
    }

In this example, the class TestFilter is a servlet filter as it implements Filter. The @ServletFilter provides the following meta data:

• the url pattern of the filter applied, /myurl
• initialization parameter of the filter, mesg=my filter, corresponds to <init-param> under <filter> in web.xml
  Note that in this case, @InitParam is used to specify the name/value pairs.

Servlet Context Listener Annotation ( @WebServletContextListener )

One can specify the servlet content listener met data by using @WebServletContextListener. For instance,

    @WebServletContextListener
    public class TestServletContextListener implements javax.servlet.ServletContextListener {
        ....
        public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent sce) {
            ....
        }

        public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent sce) {
            ....
        }
    }

In this example, the class TestServletContextListener is a servlet context listener as it implements ServletContextListener. The @WebServletContextListener provides the meta data that this is a servlet context listener in a given war file.