Servlet API Maintenance Release 6 (MR6) Change Log

This document is the maintenance review of the Java Servlet 2.5 Servlet specification developed under the Java Community Process (JCP). This maintenance review provides errata to the Servlet 2.5 specification and does not introduce a new version of the Servlet API.

Changes Since Servlet 2.5 MR 5

Clarify SRV 8.4 "The Forward Method" (Issue 30)

Change the last sentence of the section which currently is

"Before the forward method of the RequestDispatcher interface returns, the response content must be sent and committed, and closed by the servlet container." to read

"Before the forward method of the RequestDispatcher interface returns without exception, the response content must be sent and committed, and closed by the servlet container.

If an error occurs in the target of the RequestDispatcher.forward() the exception may be propogated back through all the calling filters and servlets and eventually back to the container.

Update Deployment descriptor "http-method values allowed" (Issue 32)

The facet for http-method element in the deployment descriptor is currently more restrictive than the http specification. The following change is being made to the descriptor to allow the set of method names as defined by the http specification. The pattern value of http-methodType is being changed from
<xsd:pattern value="[\p{L}-[\p{Cc}\p{Z}]]+"/>
to closely match what the http specification lists as allowable http methods names.
<xsd:pattern value="[&#33;-&#126;-[\(\)&#60;&#62;@,;:&#34;/\[\]?=\{\}\\\p{Z}]]+"/>

Clarify SRV 7.7.1 "Threading Issues" (Issue 33)

Change the paragraph which currently is

"Multiple servlets executing request threads may have active access to a single session object at the same time. The Developer has the responsibility for synchronizing access to session resources as appropriate." to read

"Multiple servlets executing request threads may have active access to the same session object at the same time. The container must ensure that manipulation of internal data structures representing the session attributes is performed in a threadsafe manner. The Developer has the responsibility for threadsafe access to the attribute objects themselves. This will protect the attribute collection inside the HttpSession object from concurrent access, eliminating the opportunity for an application to cause that collection to become corrupted.