What, exactly, is an attribute?
We saw how the ServletContext listener created a Dog object (after getting the context init parameter) and was able to stick (set) the Dog into the ServletContext as an attribute, so that other parts of the app could get it. Earlier, with the beer tutorial, we saw how the servlet was able to stick the results of the call to the model into the Request (usually HttpServletRequest) object as an attribute (so that the JSP/view could get the value).
An attribute is an object set (referred to as bound) into one of three other servlet API objects—ServletContext, HttpServletRequest (or ServletRequest), or HttpSession. You can think of it as simply a name/value pair (where the name is a String and the value is an Object) in a map instance variable. In reality, we don’t know or care how it’s actually implemented—all we really care about is the scope in which the attribute exists. In other words, who can see it and how long does it live.
Who can see this bulletin board? Who can get and set the attributes?
An attribute is like an object pinned to a bulletin board. Somebody stuck it on the board so that others can get it.
The big questions are: who has access to the bulletin board, and how long does it live? In other words, what is the scope of the attribute?
Attributes are not parameters!
If you’re new to servlets, you might need to spend some time reinforcing the difference ...
Get Head First Servlets and JSP, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
