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Trail: Servlets
Lesson: Running Servlets

Configuring JSDK Servlets

You configure servlet applications that run on the JSDK 2.1 server by specifying properties. Properties are key-value pairs used for the configuration, creation, and initialization of a servlet. For example, catalog.code=CatalogServlet is a property whose key is catalog.code and whose value is CatalogServlet. Properties are stored in a text file with a default name of servlets.properties. The file holds the properties for all the servlets that the servlet-running utility will run.

Using properties requires you to name your servlet. (The string catalog in the property names above is the catalog servlet's name.) The servlet name enables the servlet-running utilities to associate properties with the correct servlets. It is also the name that clients will use when they access your servlet.

The JSDK server has two properties for servlets. They associate the name that you choose for your servlet with:


 

The Servlet Class

The property that associates the name that you choose for your servlet with the servlet class is name.code. The value of the property is the servlet's full class name, including its package. For example if the duke's bookstore classes were in an examples.bookstore package, the catalog servlet would have this property:

    catalog.code=examples.bookstore.CatalogServlet

The name.code property names your servlet by associating a name (in the example, catalog) with a class (in the example, examples.bookstore.CatalogServlet).
 

Initialization Parameters

The value of the name.initparams property holds a servlet's initialization parameters.

The syntax of a single initialization parameter is parameterName=parameterValue. The entire property (the entire key-value pair) must be a single logical line. For readability, you can use the backquote syntax to allow the property to span multiple lines in the file. For example, if the bookstore servlet took the name of the initial HTML file as a parameter, the servlet's initial argument might look like this:

   bookdb.initparams=\
      mainFile=examples/bookstore/Bookstore.html

Multiple initialization parameters are specified as a comma-separated list. For example, if the book detail servlet got its book information by connecting to a real database, its initial arguments might look like this:

   bookdetails.initparams=\
      user=duke,\
      password=dukes_password,\
      url=fill_in_the_database_url

 

The Property File

Here is the servlets.properties file(outside of the tutorial) for the Duke's Bookstore example.


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