Enterprise Java

A Part of the Java: Under the Hood™ Series

Audience: Programmers who have a good working knowledge of the Java programming language, as well as a basic understanding of Web technologies, HTML, distributed computing, and JDBC.

Course Length: 5 days

Enterprise Java is an advanced Java course that covers the most important topics of Sun's J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition): Servlets, JavaServer Pages, CORBA using Java, and XML using Java. This is a hands-on course, with labs that create an online banking system, an online store, a distributed banking system using CORBA, and a chat program that uses XML messages to communicate.

Course Outline (download pdf version)

Overview of J2EE Technologies

• The J2EE Specification: A superset of the EJB specification.
• The EJB Specification: A description of services provided by an EJB server.
• Java Servlets: Applications that run in a Web server.
• Java Database Connectivity: Connecting to a database from within a Java application.
• Java Server Pages: Used for creating dynamic Web page content.
• JNDI: The Java Naming and Directory Interface.
• JTS: Java Transaction Service and the Java Transaction API.
• Java Message Service: An API for enterprise messaging needs.
• Java IDL: The Interface Definition Language and implementing CORBA with Java.
• XML: The extensible markup language.
• Java Mail: An overview of the Java Mail API.

Servlets

• Overview of Servlets: Programs that run in a Web server.
• Server-side Development: Options for creating Web applications.
• Advantages of Servlets: Powerful, portable and secure.
• The Servlet API: The javax.servlet and javax.servlet.http packages.
• HTTP: The Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
• Requests: The HTTP Request header.
• Responses: The HTTP Response header.
• HTML Basics: A quick introduction to HTML and its syntax.
• HTTP Servlets: The HttpServlet class.
• The "Hello, World" Servlet: A simple HTTP servlet handling a GET request.
• The Lifecycle of a Servlet: The servlet container.
• A Servlet Counter: A demonstration of the lifecycle of a servlet.
• HttpServletRequest: Encapsulating the HTTP request header of a client request.
• HttpServletResponse: Encapsulating the HTTP respone to a client.
• Parameters: Obtaining data from the client request.
• The Request Dispatcher: Including servlets and forwarding requests to other servlets.
• Scope: Understanding the various scopes an object can have within a servlet container.
• Request Scope: Objects associated with a client request.
• Application Scope: A container-wide object.
• Session Scope: Creating client sessions.
• Cookies: A sweet session tracker.
• The HttpSession Interface: Container session objects.
• URL Rewriting: Encoding a URL.
• Servlet Threading Models: The SingleThreadModel.
• Connecting to a Database: JDBC within a servlet.
• Server-side Includes: A servlet embedded in an HTML page.

JavaServer Pages

• Server-side Development: Comparing JSP to other technologies.
• Overview of JavaServer Pages: Java technology for creating dynamic Web content.
• JSP Lifecycle: Translation of JSP into servlets.
• An Introduction to Servlets: Understanding how servlets run on a Web server.
• "Hello, JSPs": A simple JavaServer Page.
• JavaServer Page Tags: The various JSP tags.
• Templating: The include directive.
• Declarations: Declaring variables and methods.
• Expressions: Java statements within a JSP.
• The request Object: The request header information.
• Parameters: Request data passed in to the JSP.
• Scriptlets: Embedding Java code within a JSP.
• Directives: Specifying options for the page.
• Implicit Objects: The implicit objects of a JSP.
• JSP Actions: The action tags of JSP.
• Overview of JavaBeans: Java software components.
• JavaBeans in JSPs: The useBean directive.
• Error Pages: Handling exceptions in JSP.
• Scope: The four scopes of JSP objects.
• Sessions: Creating sessions within JSP.
• Request Scope: Associating data with the request.
• Application Scope: The implicit application object.
• Session Scope: Creating client sessions.
• The Implicit Session Object: Session tracking made easy.
• Beans with Session Scope

Java and CORBA

• The Object Management Group: Understanding the goals of the OMG.
• Overview of CORBA: A specification for distributed objects.
• The Java IDL: The Interface Definition Language.
• The ORB Architecture: Handling requests from a client.
• Services of the ORB: Naming, transaction, and event services.
• The Portable Object Adapter: Communicating with the servant.
• The Interface Definition Language: The IDL keywords.
• Writing an IDL Interface: The interface and attribute keywords.
• Adding Methods: Declaring the methods of an interface.
• Compiling the IDL: Generating the stubs and helper classes.
• Defining Exceptions: The exception keyword.
• Implementing CORBA on the Server: The steps involved in implementing CORBA on the server.
• Step 1: Implement the IDL interfaces.
• Step 2: Initialize the ORB.
• Step 3: Create the POA.
• Step 4: Generate an IOR for the servant.
• Step 5: Run the ORB.
• The Client Application: Implementing CORBA on the client side.
• The Naming Service: Locating objects using a naming hierarchy.
• COS Naming: The CORBA object naming service.
• Using the Naming Service: Binding and resolving objects.

XML

• Overview of XML: Understanding the goals of XML.
• XML Documents: Well-formed vs. valid.
• Using XML: The components of an XML document.
• The Root Element: The highest-level of the document.
• Elements: Describing your data with element tags.
• Creating a DTD: Adding constraints to XML.
• XML APIs: SAX and JAXP.
• Selecting a Parser: Loading the parser class.
• Parsing an XML Document: The XMLReader interface.
• Content Handlers: Handling callbacks during parsing.
• Error Handlers: Handling errors and warnings during parsing.
• DOM: The Document Object Model.
• Creating DOM Objects: The Document interface.
• Using DOM: Creating an XML document using DOM.