HttpResponse
Jakob Jenkov |
The HttpServlet class request processing methods take two parameters.
- javax.servlet.http.HttpRequest
- javax.servlet.http.HttpResponse
For instance, here is the signature of the HttpServlet.doGet() method:
protected void doGet(
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException {
}
In this text I will look at the HttpResponse object.
The purpose of the HttpResponse object is to represent
the HTTP response your web application sends back to the browser,
in response to the HTTP request the browser send to your web application.
The HttpResponse object has a lot of methods, so I will just cover the most
commonly used here. The rest you can read about in the JavaDoc, if you are interested.
Writing HTML
To send HTML back to the browser, you have to obtain the a PrintWriter
from the HttpResponse object. Here is how:
PrintWriter writer = response.getWriter();
writer.write("<html><body>GET/POST response</body></html>");
Headers
Just like the request object, the HttpRequest can contain HTTP headers.
Headers must be set before any data is written to the response.
You set a header on the response object like this:
response.setHeader("Header-Name", "Header Value");
As you can see, a response header is a name, value pair.
Content-Type
The Content-Type header is a response header that tells the browser the type
of the content you are sending back to it. For instance, the content type for HTML
is text/html. Similarly, if what you send back to the browser is plain text,
you use the content type text/plain.
Here is how you set the Content-Type header on the HttpResponse
object:
response.setHeader("Content-Type", "text/html");
Writing Text
You can write text back to the browser instead of HTML, like this:
response.setHeader("Content-Type", "text/plain");
PrintWriter writer = response.getWriter();
writer.write("This is just plain text");
First the Content-Type header is set to text/plain.
Then a plain text string is written to the writer obtained from the response object.
Content-Length
The Content-Length header tells the browser how many bytes your servlet
is sending back. If you are sending binary data back you need to set the content length
header. Here is how:
response.setHeader("Content-Length", "31642");
Writing Binary Data
You can also write binary data back to the browser instead of text. For instance, you can send an image back, a PDF file or a Flash file or something like that.
Again, you will first have to set the Content-Type header to the
type matching the data you are sending back. For instance, the content type
for a PNG image is image/png.
You can search for "mime types" in your favourite search engine to find a list of mime types (content types), so you can find the mime type for the content you are sending back.
In order to write binary data back to the browser you cannot use the
Writer obtained from response.getWriter().
Afterall, Writer's are intended for text.
Instead you have to use the OutputStream obtained from the response.getOutputStream()
method. Here is how:
OutputStream outputStream = response.getOutputStream(); outputStream.write(...);
Redirecting to a Different URL
You can redirect the browser to a different URL from your servlet. You cannot send any data back to the browser when redirecting. Here is how you redirect:
response.sendRedirect("http://jenkov.com");
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Jakob Jenkov | |
