Basic Flow of Control for the HTTP Protocol
Because Arbortext Publishing Engine is implemented as a Java servlet, a client request must use the HTTP protocol. The basic flow of control for a web client, a web server, a Java servlet container, and a Java servlet follows:
1. The client transmits an HTTP request to a web server and waits for a response.
2. The web server receives the request and examines the URI. The URI specifies that the request should be handled by a Java servlet, so the web server passes the request to its servlet container.
3. The servlet container receives the request and examines the URI to determine which servlet should process the request.
a. If the servlet has not yet been loaded, the servlet container loads it and calls the servlet's initialization method.
b. The servlet container passes the request to the servlet for processing.
4. The servlet processes the request, generates a response, and passes the response to the servlet container.
5. The servlet container returns the response to the web server.
6. The web server transmits the response to the client.
7. The client receives the response and makes use of the data it contains.