Java Servlet Programming, 2nd Edition

Name

RequestDispatcher

Synopsis

Interface Name: javax.servlet.RequestDispatcher

Superinterface: None

Immediate Subinterfaces: None

Implemented By: None

Availability: Servlet API 2.1 and later

Description

The interface for an object that can internally dispatch requests to any resource (such as a servlet, HTML file, or JSP file) on the server. The servlet container creates the RequestDispatcher object that is then used as a wrapper around a server resource located at a particular path or given by a particular name. This interface is intended to wrap servlets and JSP pages, but a servlet container can create RequestDispatcher objects to wrap any type of resource. The dispatching can be used to forward a request to the resource or to include the content of that resource into the current response. This class was introduced in Servlet API 2.1.

Interface Declaration

public interface RequestDispatcher {
  // Methods
  public abstract void forward(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res)
    throws ServletException, java.io.IOException             // New in 2.1
  public abstract void include(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res)
    throws ServletException, java.io.IOException             // New in 2.1
}

Methods

forward()

public abstract void forward(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res)  
  throws ServletException, IOException, IllegalStateException

Description

Forwards a request from a servlet to another resource on the server. This method allows one servlet to do preliminary processing of a request and another resource to generate ...