Creating Servlet Project Example/Demo in Eclipse

Read Time:6 Minute, 53 Second

Servlets are like small Java programs that live on a special kind of computer called a web server. These programs are really good at listening to requests from the internet, doing some work with those requests (like getting information from a database), and then sending a reply back. So, they help make websites work by handling the behind-the-scenes tasks.

rerequisites:

Eclipse IDE installed – You can download from https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
choose Eclipse IDE for Enterprise Java and Web Developers
Running server – To run the servlet, we need a server. we can use any Webserver/Application server such as IBM Websphere, Glassfish, Tomcat, etc., in this example we will be using Apache Tomcat server. You can download the latest Tomcat version from https://tomcat.apache.org/

Once the Eclipse is installed and configured with the Tomcat server, below are the steps to create a basic Servlet in Eclipse IDE.

Steps to Create Servlet

In this example, we will create a basic servlet that displays a Welcome message to the user in the browser.

Step 1: Create a Dynamic web project

In Eclipse, go to File -> New -> Dynamic Web Project and click on it.

After clicking on Dynamic web project, the below window will open to enter the required project details.

Enter the Project Name.
Check if the location where the project saves is correct.
Check if the Run time selected for the project is displaying. If you want to change any of the configurations for runtime, you can do by clicking Modify.
Click on Next.

The source folders on the build path and the classes folder will be displayed here.
Click on Next.

This is the web module creation, where all your HTML and JSP pages will be added.
We can also generate a Deployment Descriptor – web.xml file to define the mappings between URL paths and the servlets to handle the requests with those paths. This can also be done using @WebServlet() annotation in the Servlet class.
In this example, we will be using annotation in our servlet class to map the URL path.
But for the demonstration purpose to show the web.xml file creation in the project, we will select the web.xml checkbox also.
Click on Finish.

Project Structure

In this way, the project structure should be created.

Step 2: servlet-api.jar file

As we are working with servlets, we need to have the servlet-api.jar file in our project. This jar is a library that contains all the interfaces and classes of the Servlet API, so we can use its functionality to develop our web application.

In this example, we are using the Apache Tomcat server to run the project.
Tomcat container is an open-source Java servlet container that implements several core Java enterprise functionalities like the Java Servlet, JSP, etc., so it provides this servlet-api.jar file by default.
You can check the jar file in the below path if you are using the Tomcat server only.

As you can see, under Apache Tomcat, there is a servlet-api.jar file by default.

For Different servers:

In case, if you are using a different server and the servlet-api.jar file is not there, you can download it from Maven Repository.
Add the downloaded jar file as an external jar to your project like below,

Go to the project name and right-click on it. Go to Build Path -> Configure Build Path.

In this window, it will show all the libraries that are associated with the project, and also you can add any required jar files to your project.
Go to the Libraries tab and click on Add External JARs.
Select the servlet-api.jar file from the location you downloaded and add.

Once the jar file is added, click on Apply and Close.
The added jar file will be visible under the lib folder in your project.

Step 3: Create Servlet Class

To create a Servlet, go to folder src -> New -> Servlet.

If the Servlet option is not there, go to Other and search for Servlet.

It is a good practice to create Java classes inside Packages.
Enter the package name and Class name.
Java Servlets are available under javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet. So the Superclass is HttpServlet.
Click on Next.

As we learned about the URL mappings while creating the project, we can specify those URL mapping for the particular servlet here.
The URL specified here should be used in mapping the servlets either in web.xml or by using annotation.
It will show the default mapping name but if you want, you can change that by selecting the URL and clicking on Edit.
Click on Next.

HTTP Servlet is a protocol-specific Servlet and it provides all these methods that are shown in the above screenshot.
We can use these methods based on our requirements.
For example, if we want to implement logic while initialization of the servlet, we can override the init() method.
For HTTP GET requests, to get the information for the request, we can use the doGet() method.
Get more information on HTTP Servlet methods here.
In this example, we are just showing a Welcome message to the user. So, select the doGet Checkbox.
Click on Finish.

HelloServlet.java

As shown above, it creates the HelloServlet.java Servlet class with the doGet() method we selected.
As you can see, it automatically provided the @WebServlet(“/HelloServlet”) annotation for this servlet to map the URL. So, there is no need to enter the mapping again in the web.xml file.
In Java for every class there will be a default constructor, so that constructor is also auto-generated here.
If you are aware of the Serialization concept in Java, the serialVersionUID which is a version number associated with every serialization class is also generated while creating a Servlet in Eclipse IDE.

Step 4: Implement the Logic

In the doGet() method, implement the logic to display the welcome message to the user.

HelloServlet.java

Java

package com.example; 
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter; 
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
importjavax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse; 
@WebServlet("/HelloServlet")
public classHelloServlet extends HttpServlet {    
private static final longserialVersionUID = 1L;            
publicHelloServlet() {        
super();        
// TODO Auto-generated constructor stub    
}     
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
         response.setContentType("text/html");
                 PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
                 out.print("<html><body>");
                 out.print("<h2>Welcome to GeeksForGeeks</h2>");
                 out.print("</body></html>");
}
}

Once we get the Get request from the browser, the doGet() method will be executed.
Here, we are setting the response content type as “text/html” so that the response that is being sent to the client/browser will be considered as text/html.
In the java.io package, Java provides a PrintWriter class to print the formatted output to the text-output streams.
So, get the PrintWriter object and print the Welcome Message.
You need to add all the required packages in the servlet class.
As we specified the content type as “text/html”, the tags we mentioned in the output stream – out.print() will be considered as the HTML tags and the message “Welcome to GeeksForGeeks” will be written in the response to the browser.

Step 5: Run the Project

Right-click on the HelloServlet.java class, Run As -> Run on Server.

If you want to Debug the servlet, you can click on Debug also here.

Make sure the Tomcat server is configured properly on localhost and click on Next.

Check the Project you created is in configured section and then click on Finish.
If the project is showing in the Available section, select the project and click on Add to configure the project on the server.

Output: