Working with an HttpSession Object

The AffableBean application uses the HttpSession object to identify users over multiple requests. An HttpSession object is obtained using getSession() on a given request:

HttpSession session = request.getSession();

If a session object doesn't yet exist for the request, the method creates and returns a new session object.

You can use the session object as a vehicle for passing data between requests. You use the setAttribute method to bind objects to the session. Likewise, you use getAttribute to retrieve objects from the session. In the AffableBean application for example, the user's shopping cart is created and bound to the user session in the following manner:

ShoppingCart cart = new ShoppingCart();
session.setAttribute("cart", cart);

In order to retrieve the cart from the session, the getAttribute method is applied:

cart = (ShoppingCart) session.getAttribute("cart");

In JSP pages, you can access objects bound to the session using EL expressions. Continuing with the above example, if a ShoppingCart object named 'cart' is bound to the session, you can access the object using the following EL expression:

${cart}

Accessing the ShoppingCart object on its own is of little value however. What you really want is a way to access values stored in the object. If you explore the new ShoppingCart class in the project snapshot, you'll note that it contains the following properties:

• double total
• int numberOfItems
• List<String, ShoppingCartItem> items

Provided that properties have matching getter methods, you can access values for singular properties using simple dot notation in an EL expression. If you examine the cart.jsp page, you'll see that this is exactly how the value for numberOfItems is accessed:

<p>Your shopping cart contains ${cart.numberOfItems} items.</p>

In order to extract data from properties that contain multiple values, such as the above items list, the cart.jsp page uses a <c:forEach> loop:

<c:forEach var="cartItem" items="${cart.items}" varStatus="iter">

  <c:set var="product" value="${cartItem.product}"/>

    <tr class="${((iter.index % 2) == 0) ? 'lightBlue' : 'white'}">
        <td>
            <img src="${initParam.productImagePath}${product.name}.png"
                 alt="${product.name}">
        </td>

        <td>${product.name}</td>

        <td>
            &euro; ${cartItem.total}
            <br>
            <span class="smallText">( &euro; ${product.price} / unit )</span>
        </td>
        ...
    </tr>

</c:forEach>

ShoppingCartItem's product property identifies the product type for a cart item. The above loop takes advantage of this by first setting a product variable to the expression ${cartItem.product}. It then uses the variable to obtain information about that product (e.g., name, price).

Working with Scoped Variables in Web Applications

When working with JSP/Servlet technology, there are four scope objects available to you within the realm of the application. JSP technology implements implicit objects that allows you to access classes defined by the Servlet API.

If you open your project's category.jsp file in the editor, you'll see that EL expressions include various scoped variables, including ${categories}, ${selectedCategory} and ${categoryProducts}. The ${categories} variable is application-scoped, which is set in the ControllerServlet's init method:

// store category list in servlet context
getServletContext().setAttribute("categories", categoryFacade.findAll());

The other two, ${selectedCategory} and ${categoryProducts}, are placed in the application's session scope from the ControllerServlet. For example:

// place selected category in session scope
session.setAttribute("selectedCategory", selectedCategory);

Note: If you are continuing from the previous tutorial units, you'll likely note that ${selectedCategory} and ${categoryProducts} were originally placed in the request scope. In previous units this was fine, but consider now what happens if a user clicks the 'add to cart' button in a category page. The server responds to an addToCart request by returning the currently viewed category page. It therefore needs to know the selectedCategory and the categoryProducts pertaining to the selected category. Rather than establishing this information for each request, you place it in the session scope from a category request so that it is maintained across multiple requests, and can be accessed when you need it. Also, examine the functionality provided by the cart page. (A functional description is provided below.) The 'continue shopping' button returns the user to the previously viewed category. Again, the selectedCategory and the categoryProducts variables are required.

When referencing scoped variables in an EL expression, you do not need to specify the variable's scope (provided that you do not have two variables of the same name in different scopes). The JSP engine checks all four scopes and returns the first variable match it finds. In category.jsp for example, you can use the following expression:

${categoryProducts}

This expression is shorthand for the following expression:

${sessionScope.categoryProducts}

• Designing Enterprise Applications with the J2EE Platform: State Scopes
• Sharing Information > Using Scoped Objects
• Unified Expression Language > Implicit Objects

Examining Client-Server Communication with the HTTP Monitor

By default, the servlet engine uses cookies to maintain and identify sessions between requests. A random, alphanumeric number is generated for each session object, which serves as a unique identifier. This identifier is passed as a 'JSESSIONID' cookie to the client. When the client makes a request, the servlet engine reads the value of the JSESSIONID cookie to determine the session which the request belongs to.

To demonstrate this, we'll use the debugger in tandem with the IDE's HTTP Monitor.

1. Begin by activating the HTTP Monitor for the server you are using. Choose Tools > Servers. In the left column of the Servers window, select the server you are using (GlassFish). Then, in the main column, select the Enable HTTP Monitor option.
   
2. If your server is already running, you need to restart it. However, since we plan to use the debugger, and running the debugger restarts the server to communicate on a different port, just click the Debug Project ( ) button in the IDE's main toolbar. The server restarts, a debug session begins and the application's welcome page opens in your browser. The HTTP Monitor displays in the bottom region of the IDE.
   
3. Click the AffableBean record in the left column (as shown in the above image). When you select records in the left column, the right (i.e., main) column refreshes to display corresponding data. In the above image, the Request tab displays the requested URI (/AffableBean/), the HTTP method (GET), and points out that there was no query string sent with the request.
4. Select the Session tab. Note that there is a statement, "The session was created as a result of this request." This is due to the fact that the server has sent a Set-Cookie header for the JSESSIONID cookie in its response. Also note that the new session ID is listed under 'Session properties'. As will later be shown, the session ID is the value of the JSESSIONID cookie.
   
   You may wonder how a session object was created from a request for the site welcome page. After all, the ControllerServlet does not handle the initial request for /AffableBean/, and nowhere does this request encounter getSession(). Or does it? Recall that JSP pages are compiled into servlets upon deployment. Once you've deployed your project to the server, you can actually use the IDE to view the JSP's compiled servlet on your server.
5. In the Projects window, right-click the index.jsp file and choose View Servlet. An index_jsp.java file opens in the editor. This is the servlet that was automatically compiled from the index.jsp page.
6. Perform a search in the file for getSession. Press Ctrl-F (⌘-F on Mac), type 'getSession' in the search bar, then press Enter.
   
   

   Ctrl-F (⌘-F on Mac) is a keyboard shortcut for Edit > Find.

   

   The getSession method is in fact called. The reason this occurs is because JSP pages include the pageContext.session implicit object by default. If you wanted to deactivate this behavior, you could add the following directive to the top of a JSP file:

   <%@page session="false" %>

   If you add the directive the getSession method will be removed in the compiled servlet.

   To find out the location of the compiled servlet on your server, you can hover your mouse over the servlet's name tab above the editor. A popup displays the path to the file on your computer.

7. In the browser, select a category then add an item to your cart. Switch back to the IDE. Note that the debugger suspends on the breakpoint in the ControllerServlet you set earlier (line 150). All breakpoints are remembered between sessions. To remove the breakpoint, you could click the breakpoint ( ) badge in the editor's left margin. However, since there are multiple breakpoints already set in the project, open the debugger's Breakpoints window (Window > Debugging > Breakpoints).
   
   From the Breakpoints window, you can view and call actions on all breakpoints set in projects opened in the IDE.
8. Right-click the breakpoint set in header.jspf and choose Delete. Then right-click the breakpoint set in the ControllerServlet and choose Disable. (You'll re-enable it later in this exercise.)
9. Click the Continue ( ) button. The request finishes executing, and the category page displays in the browser with one item added to the cart.
10. In the HTTP Monitor, search for the addToCart request in the left column, then select it to display details in the main column.
    
    

    Click the Ascending Sort ( ) button so that the most recent records are listed at the top.

    
    Under the Request tab, note the requested URI (/AffableBean/addToCart), the HTTP method (POST), and the request parameters (productId and submit).
    
11. Select the Cookies tab. Here you see that a cookie named JSESSIONID exists, and was sent from the client to the server. Note that the value for the cookie is the same as the Session ID displayed under the Session tab.
    
    Likewise, if you click the Header tab, you see the cookie listed, since 'Cookie' is a request header that was sent by the client.
    

    See Wikipedia's List of HTTP headers for more information on request and response headers.

12. Select the Session tab. There is a statement which indicates, "The session existed before this request." Also note that the cart attribute is listed under 'Session attributes after the request'. This makes sense, since we know that the cart object is bound to the session when the addToCart request is processed for the first time.
    
    
    In the next few steps, locate the session ID and JSESSIONID cookie in the Variables window.
13. Re-enable the breakpoint you set earlier in the ControllerServlet. Press Alt-Shift-5 (Ctrl-Shift-5 on Mac) to open the Breakpoints window, then click in the checkbox next to the breakpoint entry to re-enable it.
14. In the browser, click the 'add to cart' button for one of the listed products.
15. Switch to the IDE and note that the debugger is suspended on the breakpoint set in the ControllerServlet. Click the Step Over ( ) button so that the session variable is assigned to the session object.
16. Open the Variables window (Alt-Shift-1; Ctrl-Shift-1 on Mac) and expand session > session. You'll find the session ID listed as the value for the id variable.
17. To locate the JSESSIONID cookie, recall that you can normally access cookies from a servlet by calling the getCookies method on the HttpServletRequest. Therefore, drill into the request object: request > Inherited > request > request > Inherited > cookies. Here you see the cookies ArrayList. If you expand the list, you'll find the JSESSIONID cookie, the value of which is the session ID.
18. Click the Finish Session ( ) button to terminate the debug session.

Maintaining Sessions with URL Rewriting

As mentioned, the servlet engine detects whether cookies are supported for the client browser, and if not, it switches to URL rewriting as a means of maintaining sessions. This all happens transparently for the client. For you, the developer, the process isn't entirely transparent.

You need to ensure that the application is capable of rewriting URLs whenever cookies are disabled. You do this by calling the response’s encodeURL method on all URLs returned by servlets in your application. Doing so enables the session ID to be appended to the URL in the event that the use of cookies is not an option; otherwise, it returns the URL unchanged.

For example, the browser sends a request for AffableBean's third category (bakery): category?3. The server responds with session ID included in the URL:

/AffableBean/category;jsessionid=364b636d75d90a6e4d0085119990?3

As stated above, all URLs returned by your application's servlets must be encoded. Keep in mind that JSP pages are compiled into servlets. How can you encode URLs in JSP pages? JSTL's <c:url> tag serves this purpose. The following exercise demonstrates the problem and illustrates a solution.

1. Temporarily disable cookies in your browser. If you are using Firefox, you can choose Tools > Options (Firefox > Preferences on Mac). In the window that displays, select the Privacy tab, then under History, select 'Use custom settings for history' in the provided drop-down. Deselect the 'Accept cookies from sites' option.
   
2. Run the AffableBean project. When the welcome page displays, click into a category, then try adding an item to your cart. You'll see that the application's functionality is severely compromised in its present state.
   
   As before, the server generates a session and binds objects to it. This is how the category page is able to display the selected category and products. However, the server has failed in its attempt to set a JSESSIONID cookie. Therefore, when the client makes a second request (when user clicks 'add to cart'), the server has no way of identifying the session which the request belongs to. It therefore cannot locate any of the attributes previously set in the session, such as selectedCategory and categoryProducts. This why the rendered response lacks the information specified by these attributes.
3. Open the project's category.jsp page in the editor. Locate the line that implements the 'add to cart' button (line 58). The <form> element's action attribute determines the request sent to the server.

   <form action="addToCart" method="post">

4. Modify the request so that it is passed through the <c:url> tag.

   <form action="<c:url value='addToCart'/>" method="post">

5. Press Ctrl-S (⌘-S on Mac) to save changes to the file. Recall that the IDE provides the Deploy on Save feature, which is enabled by default. This means that any saved changes are automatically deployed to your server.
6. In the browser, select a different category so that the application renders the newly modified category page.
7. Examine the source code for the page. In Firefox, you can press Ctrl-U (⌘-U on Mac). The 'add to cart' button for each product displays with the session ID appended to the URL.

   <form action="addToCart;jsessionid=4188657e21d72f364e0782136dde" method="post">

8. Click the 'add to cart' button for any item. You see that the server is now able to determine the session which the request belongs to, and renders the response appropriately.
9. Before proceeding, make sure to re-enable cookies for your browser.

Again, every link that a user is able to click on within the application, whose response requires some form of session-related data, needs to be properly encoded. Sometimes implementation is not as straight-forward as the example shown above. For example, the 'clear cart' widget used in cart.jsp currently sets a clear parameter to true when the link is clicked.

<%-- clear cart widget --%>
<c:if test="${!empty cart && cart.numberOfItems != 0}">
    <a href="viewCart?clear=true" class="bubble hMargin">clear cart</a>
</c:if>

The <c:url> tag can be applied to the URL in the following manner:

<%-- clear cart widget --%>
<c:if test="${!empty cart && cart.numberOfItems != 0}">

    <c:url var="url" value="viewCart">
        <c:param name="clear" value="true"/>
    </c:url>

    <a href="${url}" class="bubble hMargin">clear cart</a>
</c:if>

The clear=true parameter is set by adding a <c:param tag between the <c:url> tags. A variable named 'url' is set using <c:url>'s var attribute, and var is then accessed in the HTML anchor tag using the ${url} expression.

You can download and examine snapshot 6 to see how all links in the project have been encoded.

URL rewriting should only be used in the event that cookies are not an available tracking method. URL rewriting is generally considered a suboptimal solution because it exposes the session ID in logs, bookmarks, referer headers, and cached HTML, in addition to the browser's address bar. It also requires more server-side resources, as the server needs to perform additional steps for each incoming request in order to extract the session ID from the URL and pair it with an existing session.

Setting Session Time Intervals

You should consider the maximum time interval which your server maintains sessions for. If your website receives heavy traffic, a large number of sessions could expend your server's memory capacity. You might therefore shorten the interval in hopes of removing unused sessions. On the other hand, you certainly wouldn't want to cut sessions too short, as this could become a usability issue that might have a negative impact on the business behind the website. Taking the AffableBean application as an example, a user proceeds to checkout after filling her shopping cart with items. She then realizes she needs to enter her credit card details and goes off to find her purse. After returning to her computer with credit card in hand, she fills in the checkout form and clicks submit. During this time however, her session has expired on the server. The user sees that her shopping cart is empty and is redirected to the homepage. Will she really take the time to step through the process again?

The following steps demonstrate how to set the session time-out interval in the AffableBean project to 10 minutes. Of course, the actual duration ultimately depends on your server resources, the business objectives of the application, and the popularity of your website.

1. Open the application's deployment descriptor in the editor. Press Alt-Shift-O (Ctrl-Shift-O on Mac) to use the IDE's Go to File dialog. Type in 'web', then click OK.
   
   The editor displays the web.xml file in the XML view. The template that NetBeans provides for the web.xml file includes a default setting for 30 minutes.

   <session-config>
       <session-timeout>
           30
       </session-timeout>
   </session-config>

2. Click the General tab, and type in '10' in the Session Timeout field.
   
3. Save the file (Ctrl-S; ⌘-S on Mac).
   
   If you switch back to the XML view, you'll see that the <session-timeout> element has been updated.

   <session-config>
       <session-timeout>10</session-timeout>
   </session-config>

Note: Alternatively, you could remove the <session-timeout> element altogether, and edit the session-properties element in the GlassFish-specific deployment descriptor (sun-web.xml). This would set the global time-out for all applications in the server's web module. See the Oracle GlassFish Server 3.0.1 Application Development Guide: Creating and Managing Sessions for more details.

Programmatically Handling Session Time-Outs

If your application relies on sessions, you need to take measures to ensure that it can gracefully handle situations in which a request is received for a session that has timed out or cannot be identified. You can accomplish this in the AffableBean application by creating a simple filter that intercepts requests heading to the ControllerServlet. The filter checks if a session exists, and if not, it forwards the request to the site's welcome page.

1. Start by examining the problem that arises when a session times out midway through a user's visit to the site. Temporarily reset the session time-out interval to one minute. Open the web deployment descriptor (web.xml) and enter '1' between the <session-timeout> tags.

   <session-config>
       <session-timeout>1</session-timeout>
   </session-config>

2. Run the AffableBean project. In the browser, click into a category page, add several items to your cart, then click 'view cart'.
   
3. Wait at least one full minute.
4. Update the quantity for one of the items displayed in the cart page. (Any number between 1 and 99 is acceptable.) Click 'update'. The server returns an HTTP Status 500 message.
   
5. Examine the GlassFish server log in the IDE. Open the Output window (Ctrl-4; ⌘-4 on Mac) and select the GlassFish Server tab. Scroll to the bottom of the log to examine the error's stack trace.
   
   The server log indicates that a NullPointerException occurred at line 184 in the ControllerServlet. The Output window forms a link to the line where the exception occurred.
6. Click the link. You navigate directly to line 184 in the ControllerServlet. Hovering your mouse over the error badge in the editor's left margin provides a tooltip describing the exception.
   
   Because the session had already expired before the request was received, the servlet engine was unable to associate the request with its corresponding session. It was therefore unable to locate the cart object (line 151). The exception finally occurred in line 184 when the engine attempted to call a method on a variable equating to null.
   
   Now that we've identified the problem, let's fix it by implementing a filter.
7. Click the New File ( ) button in the IDE's toolbar. (Alternatively, press Ctrl-N; ⌘-N on Mac.)
8. Select the Web category, then select Filter and click Next.
9. Name the filter SessionTimeoutFilter. Type filter into the Packages field so that the filter class is placed in a new package when created.
10. Click Next. Accept default settings and click Finish. A template for the SessionTimeoutFilter is generated and opens in the editor.
    
    

    Note: Currently, in NetBeans 6.9, it isn't possible to use the wizard to set a mapping to a servlet that isn't registered in the web deployment descriptor. (ControllerServlet was registered using the @WebServlet annotation.) We'll therefore modify the generated code in the next step.

11. Modify the @WebFilter annotation signature so that it appears as follows.

    @WebFilter(servletNames = {"Controller"})
    public class SessionTimeoutFilter implements Filter {

    This sets the filter to intercept any requests that are handled by the ControllerServlet. (Alternatively, you could have kept the urlPatterns attribute, and listed all patterns that the ControllerServlet handles.)
    
    Note that 'Controller' is the name of the ControllerServlet, as specified in the servlet's @WebServlet annotation signature. Also note that you've removed the filterName attribute, since the name of the filter class is used by default.
    
    The IDE's filter template provides a lot of interesting code which is worth inspecting in its own right. However, most of it is not needed for our purposes here. Any filter class must implement the Filter interface, which defines three methods:
    • init: performs any actions after the filter is initialized but before it is put into service
    • destroy: removes the filter from service. This method can also be used to perform any cleanup operations.
    • doFilter: used to perform operations for each request the filter intercepts

    Use the Javadoc Index Search to pull up documentation on the Filter interface. Press Shift-F1 (fn-Shift-F1 on Mac), then type 'Filter' into the search field and hit Enter. Select the 'Interface in javax.servlet' entry. The Javadoc documentation displays in the lower pane of the index search tool.

12. Replace the body of the SessionTimeoutFilter with the following contents.

    @WebFilter(servletNames = {"Controller"})
    public class SessionTimeoutFilter implements Filter {
    
        public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain)
                throws IOException, ServletException {
    
            HttpServletRequest req = (HttpServletRequest) request;
    
            HttpSession session = req.getSession(false);
    
            // if session doesn't exist, forward user to welcome page
            if (session == null) {
                try {
                    req.getRequestDispatcher("/index.jsp").forward(request, response);
                } catch (Exception ex) {
                    ex.printStackTrace();
                }
                return;
            }
    
            chain.doFilter(request, response);
        }
    
        public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) throws ServletException {}
    
        public void destroy() {}
    
    }

13. Press Ctrl-Shift-I (⌘-Shift-I on Mac) to fix import statements. (Imports need to be added for HttpServletRequest and HttpSession.) Also, use the editor hints to add the @Override annotation to the init, destroy, and doFilter methods.
    
    In the coming steps, you run the debugger on the project and step through the doFilter method to see how it determines whether the request is bound to an existing session.
14. Open the Breakpoints window (Alt-Shift-5; Ctrl-Shift-5 on Mac) and ensure that you do not have any existing breakpoints set. To delete a breakpoint, right-click the breakpoint and choose Delete. (If you completed the above exercise, Examining Client-Server Communication with the HTTP Monitor, you may have an outstanding breakpoint set in the ControllerServlet.)
15. Run the debugger. Click the Debug Project ( ) button in the IDE's main toolbar.
16. When the welcome page displays in the browser, select a category, then add several items to your shopping cart.
17. Set a breakpoint on the line in SessionTimeoutFilter's doFilter method that tries to access the session (line 32).
    
18. In the browser, click the 'view cart' button. Switch to the IDE and note that the debugger has suspended on the breakpoint.
    
    Recall that getSession() creates a new session object if the current one doesn't exist. Here, we use getSession(false), which refrains from creating a new object if none is found. In other words, the method returns null if the session doesn't exist.
19. Click the Step Over ( ) button, then hover your mouse over the session variable. Provided that a minute hasn't passed since the previous request was sent, you'll see that the variable has been assigned to a StandardSessionFacade. This represents the session object for the request.
    
20. Continue stepping through the method until the request is processed. Since session doesn't equal null, you skip the if statement and chain.doFilter then forwards the request to the ControllerServlet (line 44).
21. In the browser, make sure a full minute has passed, then update a quantity for one of the product items in your cart. This is the same procedure we went through earlier in the exercise when the status 500 message was returned. Now that the filter intercepts requests heading to the ControllerServlet, let's see what happens when a session time-out occurs.
22. After clicking 'update', switch to the IDE and note that the debugger is again suspended on the breakpoint set in the filter.
23. Highlight the req.getSession(false) expression, then hover your mouse over it. Here you see the expression equates to null, as the session has already expired.
    
24. Continue stepping through the code. Now that the session variable equals null, the if statement on line 35 is processed, and the request is forwarded to /index.jsp. When the debugger finishes executing, you'll see that the browser displays the site's welcome page.
25. Click the Finish Session ( ) button to terminate the debug session.
26. Open the project's web.xml file and change the session time-out interval back to 10 minutes.

    <session-config>
        <session-timeout>10</session-timeout>
    </session-config>

27. Save (Ctrl-S; ⌘-S on Mac) the file.

// if order processed successfully send user to confirmation page
if (orderId != 0) {

    // dissociate shopping cart from session
    cart = null;

    // end session
    session.invalidate();

    ...
}

NetBeans Resources

• NetBeans IDE Features: Debugger
• Debugging Multithreaded Applications
• Video of the Multithreaded Debugging with the NetBeans IDE
• Video of Using the Code Snippet Evaluator in the NetBeans Debugger
• Video Tutorials and Demos for NetBeans IDE
• Keyboard Shortcuts & Code Templates Card
• Getting Started with Java EE 6 Applications
• Introduction to Java EE Technology
• Java EE & Java Web Learning Trail

GlassFish Resources

• GlassFish Screencasts
• GlassFish v3 Documentation
• Learning GlassFish for Tomcat Users
• Oracle GlassFish Server 3.0.1 Administration Guide
• Oracle GlassFish Server 3.0.1 Application Deployment Guide
• Oracle GlassFish Server 3.0.1 Application Development Guide

Technical Articles & Miscellaneous Resources

• Java EE Code Samples & Apps
• Javadoc Tool [product homepage]
• How to Write Doc Comments for the Javadoc Tool
• The Essentials of Filters
• Core J2EE Patterns - Intercepting Filter
• Beginning and Intermediate-Level Servlet, JSP, and JDBC Tutorials
• Advanced Servlet and JSP Tutorials
• Java 5 & Java 6 Tutorials
• A JSTL primer, Part 1: The expression language
• A JSTL primer, Part 2: Getting down to the core