Chapter 6. A Sample Web Application: An Online Boat Shop

Topics in This Chapter

• Defining and using a larger Web application

• The interaction among components in a Web application

• Using sessions for per-user data

• Using the servlet context for multiuser data

• Managing information that is accessed by multiple servlets and JSP pages

• Eliminating dependencies on the Web application name

Many people find it helpful to see a variety of individual capabilities brought together in a single example. This chapter walks you through a small application (an online boat shop) that contains many of the different components discussed up to this point in the book. In particular, it illustrates:

• Web application definition, structure, and use

• The web.xml file

• The use of relative URLs by servlets and JSP pages at various locations within the Web application

• Custom tags that are used by JSP pages in various directories

• Shared beans

• Session tracking

• The use of the ServletContext to share data among multiple pages

• The MVC architecture applied within a Web application

• The elimination of any dependency on the Web application name