Web Applications

Web Applications

Stephanie Bodoff

In This Chapter

12.1 Web Application Life Cycle

12.2 Web Application Archives

12.3 Web Application Deployment Descriptors

12.4 Deploying Web Applications

12.5 Running Web Applications

12.6 Updating Web Applications

12.7 Internationalizing and Localizing Web Applications

12.8 Accessing Databases from Web Applications

A Web application is a dynamic extension of a Web server. A Web application can consist of dynamic Web pages containing various types of markup language (HTML, XML, and so on) as well as static resources such as images. A Web application can also be the endpoint of a fine-grained Web service that is used by the dynamic Web pages. In the Java 2 Platform, Web components provide the dynamic extension capabilities for a Web server. Web components are supported by the services of a runtime platform called a Web container. In the Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP), Web components are either Java Servlets and JSP pages and they run in the Tomcat Web container.

This chapter describes the organization of and configuration, and deployment procedures for Web applications. Subsequent chapters, Java Servlet Technology (page 367) and JavaServer Pages Technology (page 401), cover how to develop the Web components. Many features of JSP technology are determined by Java Servlet technology so you should familiarize yourself with that material.

Most Web applications use the HTTP protocol and support for HTTP is a major aspect of Web components. For a brief summary of HTTP protocol features see HTTP Overview (page 491).