Can a Servlet have a Constructor

Points To Remember

• Servlet is a java class that implements javax.servlet.Servlet interface.
• Servlets are initialized by the servlet containers using init() method.
• Servlets like any other java class can have constructors.
• Servlet must have a no argument constructor in case it have a non zero arguments constructor.
• Servlet needs an object of ServletConfig for initialization.
• Interfaces cannot have constructors.

Can we have Constructors in a Servlet ?

Yes we can, please read How a servlet is initialized by the servlet container. So this article will make clear, why we cannot use a constructor for initializing a servlet.

However there is no problem in having a constructor in a servlet. We can have both argumented and no arguments constructor in a servlet.

Example

What we are trying to do is to create a simple servlet with a constructor and assign a value to a String variable named as "msg".

Servlet : ServletConstructor

package com.ekiras.demo;

import java.io.IOException;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

public class ServletConstructor extends HttpServlet {
 private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
       
 private String msg;

    public ServletConstructor() {
        super();
        System.out.println("HI i am getting initialized");
        this.msg = "Servlet Constructor Demo";
    }

 protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
  System.out.println("Get method --> msg = " + msg);
 }

 protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
  // TODO Auto-generated method stub
 }

}

Deployment Descriptor : web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="3.0">
  <display-name>Test</display-name>
  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>ServletConstructor</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
  
  <servlet>
     <servlet-name>ServletConstructor</servlet-name>
     <servlet-class>com.ekiras.demo.ServletConstructor</servlet-class>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
     <servlet-name>ServletConstructor</servlet-name>
     <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>

When we run the above application in the web server like tomcat we will get the following output.

HI i am getting initialized
Get method --> msg = Servlet Constructor Demo

So this makes it clear that there is no problem in having a constructors in a servlet.