1. What are servlets?

2. What is a servlet engine?

3. What is Servlet Express?

4. What are the benefits of servlets?

5. What are the supported servers?

6. What are the supported platforms?

7. Where can I post my questions and comments about Servlet Express?

8. Why do I have to put the stub dll in System32 directory?

9. Why do I have to update the system path with the Java location?

10. Why mess with another Java classpath?

11. The server can not find javai.dll (or other Java related dll)-What should I do?

12. The server can not find my classes, what to do?

13. Something went wrong-what should I do?

14. The server returns me a message saying that the server did not perform any operation-What should I do?

15. When I try to access a servlet, the server provides me a binary content of a file-What should I do?


1. What are servlets?

Servlets as defined by sun are

"... objects which conform to a specific interface that can be plugged into a Java-based server. Servlets are similar to applets in that they are object byte codes that can be dynamically loaded off the net, but differ from applets in that they are faceless objects (without any graphics). They serve as platform independent dynamically load able plug able helper byte code objects on the server side. Servlets are a first step towards agents, but they differ from agents in that they need to be explicitly invoked on and moved.."

In short, a servlet is to the server what an applet is to the client browser; a servlet is a Java class that can be used to dynamically extend the function of the server. Servlets have a standard interface defined in the package java.servlet. More servlet-related information can be found here.

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2. What is a servlet engine?

A servlet extends the operation of a server. However, an object is needed to load the servlets, control the execution, etc.; this object is the servlet engine. Currently the only servers with built-in servlet engines are Jigsaw and Java Server, a Java-powered Web server in beta stage.

None of the existing commercial Web servers have a full servlet engine. Netscape has a Java VM embedded in its server, but it is an old, non standard VM and developers find it hard to work with.

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3. What is Servlet Express?

Servlet Express is a servlet engine plug-in for use with current Web servers. By plugging Servlet Express into your everyday Web server, you can turn it into a Java-enabled Web server. Current versions of Servlet Express work on IIS 2.0 and 3.0 by Microsoft, FastTrack 2.01, Enterprise 2.01, and Enterprise 3.0b3, by Netscape (on WindowsNT), and ICS 4.1.1, ICS 4.2, and ICS 4.2.1 by IBM.

The strong points in Servlet Express are are those :