Manage HTTP method types

Question

How do you manage specific HTTP method types for Java? I think has to do with servlets. I tried searching online but I don't quite understand it.

I read something to do with extending to the genericServlet which allows implementation of HTTP requests. Then this allows me to utilize HTTP method types? I'm just really confused

Use a framework, like Spring MVC and then you can specify which methods are handled by which bits of code without writing boilerplate. — Ashley Frieze, Nov 14 '14 at 15:01
Don't hand-write servlets. Use Spring MVC or Jersey to handle all of that low-level detail for you. — chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic-, Nov 14 '14 at 15:01
@chrylis this depends if OP is looking for a way to implement yet another web MVC framework. In that case, extending from `GenericServlet` is the way to do. — Luiggi Mendoza, Nov 14 '14 at 15:08
Thanks everyone, all your answers were really helpful and exactly what I needed :D. I could only pick 1 correct one unfortunately. But they were all really useful. Thanks!! — John McKenzie, Nov 14 '14 at 15:22
@LuiggiMendoza If he's not familiar enough not to need to ask about the servlet methods, then I'd still recommend not implementing a framework. — chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic-, Nov 14 '14 at 16:04

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 14 '14 at 15:28

3

You should extend HttpServlet and implement doGet(), doPost(), doPut() etc instead of GenericServlet.

Please read good tutorial on Servlets/JSP.

Look at HttpServlet.

edited Nov 14 '14 at 15:28

Luiggi Mendoza

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answered Nov 14 '14 at 15:02

brb tea

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Luiggi Mendoza · Answer 2 · 2014-11-14T16:22:29.483

HttpServlet class provides generic methods to accomplish this:

doGet for GET requests
doPost for POST requests
doPut for PUT requests
doDelete for DELETE requests

And that's all.

If you want to support other HTTP methods, like TRACE or CONNECT, then you should extend from GenericServlet and do all this work manually by overriding GenericServlet#service method. Take into account that this may involve several work. You could also forget about extending from one of these classes and do it all yourself by implementing Servlet interface. Examples of these:

DispatchServlet from Spring MVC framework, which extends from HttpServlet.
FacesServlet from JavaServer Faces framework, which directly implements Servlet interface and do all the work by itself. It provides support for OPTIONS, HEAD, TRACE and CONNECT methods apart from the 4 methods described above.

If you're specifically looking about how to implement a RESTful API, then it would be better to use a framework that implements JAX-RS like Jersey or RestEasy or Restlet

Can you please answer my question if you have any idea: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26881013/control-c-application-from-java-web-application — brb tea, Nov 14 '14 at 17:36

Manage HTTP method types

2 Answers2