JavaServer Faces

HTTP

The Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) is the lingua franca of the web. In order to develop any type of web application, you must understand at least the basics of this protocol. Before we dig into servlets and JSP, let’s see what HTTP is all about.

HTTP is based on a very simple communications model. Here’s how it works: a client, typically a web browser, sends a request for a resource to a server, and the server sends back a response corresponding to the resource (or a response with an error message if it can’t process the request for some reason). A resource can be a number of things, such as a simple HTML file returned verbatim to the browser or a program that generates the response dynamically. The request/response model is illustrated in Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1. HTTP request/response with two resources

This simple model implies three important facts you must be aware of:

• HTTP is a stateless protocol; the server doesn’t keep any information about the client after it sends its response, and therefore can’t recognize that multiple requests from the same client may be related.

• Web applications can’t easily provide the kind of immediate feedback typically found in standalone GUI applications, such as word processors or traditional client/server applications. Every interaction between the client and the server requires a request/response exchange. Performing a request/response exchange ...