Servlet RequestDispatcher interface

RequestDispacher is an interface that provides the facility to forward a request to another resource or include the content of another resource. RequestDispacher provides a way to call another resource from a servlet. Another resource can be servlet, jsp, or html.

Methods of RequestDispacher interface:

1. forward(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response): This method forwards a request from a servlet to another resource on the server. Syntax:

public void forward(ServletRequest request,ServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException

2. include(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response): This method includes the content of a resource in the response. Syntax:

public void include(ServletRequest request,ServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException

How to get an object of RequestDispacher.

RequestDispacher object can be obtained from the HttpServletRequest object.ServletRequest’s getRequestDispatcher()method is used to get the RequestDispatcher object.

RequestDispatcher requestDispatcher = request.getRequestDispatcher(“/another resource”);

After creating the RequestDispatcher object you call forward or include a method as per your requirement.

requestDispatcher.forward(request, response);

or

requestDispatcher.include(request, response);

Example:

LoginServlet.java

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import javax.servlet.RequestDispatcher;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;


public class LoginServlet extends HttpServlet {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
       
    //no-argument constructor
    public LoginServlet() {
        
    }
    
    protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, 
    		HttpServletResponse response) throws 
    		  ServletException, IOException {
    	
    	response.setContentType("text/html"); 
    	PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
    	
    	//get parameters from request object.
    	String userName = 
    		request.getParameter("userName").trim();
    	String password = 
    		request.getParameter("password").trim();
    	
    	//check for null and empty values.
    	if(userName == null || userName.equals("") 
    			|| password == null || password.equals("")){
    		out.print("Please enter both username" +
    				" and password. ");
    		RequestDispatcher requestDispatcher = 
    			request.getRequestDispatcher("/login.html");
    		requestDispatcher.include(request, response);
    	}//Check for valid username and password.
    	else if(userName.equals("jai") && 
    			password.equals("1234")){
    		RequestDispatcher requestDispatcher = 
    			request.getRequestDispatcher("WelcomeServlet");
    		requestDispatcher.forward(request, response);
    	}else{
    		out.print("Wrong username or password. ");
    		RequestDispatcher requestDispatcher = 
    			request.getRequestDispatcher("/login.html");
    		requestDispatcher.include(request, response);
    	}
	}
}

WelcomeServlet.java

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

public class WelcomeServlet extends HttpServlet {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
       
    //no-argument constructor
    public WelcomeServlet() {
       
    }

     protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, 
	  HttpServletResponse response)
	     throws ServletException, IOException {
	    	
	    	response.setContentType("text/html"); 
	    	PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
	    	
	    	out.println("");
	    	out.println("You are logged in successfully.");
                out.println("");
     }
}

login.html

    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
    <title>Login</title>


<form action="LoginServlet" method="post">
    Username:<input type="text" name="userName">
    <br><br>
    Password:<input type="password" name="password">
    <br><br> 
    <input type="submit" value="login"> 
</form>

 

web.xml

<!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?-->
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" xsi:schemalocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">

  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>LoginServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>
        com.w3schools.business.LoginServlet
    </servlet-class>
  </servlet>
  
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>LoginServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/LoginServlet</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
  
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>WelcomeServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>
        com.w3schools.business.WelcomeServlet
    </servlet-class>
  </servlet>
  
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>WelcomeServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/WelcomeServlet</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
  
  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>login.html</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
  
</web-app>