java.net: Dynamic Interaction with Your Web Application

java.net: Dynamic Interaction with Your Web Application: "ynamic Interaction with Your Web Application
by Lorenzo Puccetti
09/23/2005

Contents
Unveiling the Mystery:
Introducing the HookServlet
Installing the HookServlet
Running the HookServlet
Example: Getting the System's Properties
Example: Listing the .jars to Start Up Tomcat
Conclusions
Resources

Imagine you are working on a web application. A collection of servlets, HTML pages, classes, .jars, and other resources is now shaping into a fully complete application running on a web server. But something is just not right. Perhaps you are trying to investigate why certain forms seem to submit correctly but the database is not updating, or perhaps a generated web page reports that the server is in a state you would bet it cannot be in. Whatever the problem, you know you could gather a better understanding if only you could have access to the running servlet and check the current state of a few objects. Perhaps you could even temporarily fix it while you're at it."