Sunday, January 5, 2014

I am reading through head first JSP and servlets. Going through different type of listeners, I came acrossHttpSessionBindingListener and HttpSessionAttributeListener.
I was thinking about the difference between the two - I want to see the practical usages in real world examples of those two listeners. I tested HttpSessionBindingListener by implementingvalueBound() and valueUnBound() - why would an object need to know whether it has been added or not?
I am pretty confused about the practical usages. Please help in clarifying this.
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The HttpSessionBindingListener is to be implemented on the class whose instances may be stored in the session, such as the logged-in user.
E.g.
public class ActiveUser implements HttpSessionBindingListener {

    @Override
    public void valueBound(HttpSessionBindingEvent event) {
        logins.add(this);
    }

    @Override
    public void valueUnbound(HttpSessionBindingEvent event) {
        logins.remove(this);
    }

}
When an instance of this ActiveUser get set as a session attribute byHttpSession#setAttribute(), then the valueBound() will be invoked. When it get removed by either HttpSession#removeAttribute(), or an invalidate of the session, or get replaced by anotherHttpSession#setAttribute(), then the valueUnbound() will be invoked.
Here are some real world use cases:
The HttpSessionAttributeListener is to be implemented as an application wide @WebListenerwhich get invoked when any attribute is added, removed or replaced in the HttpSession. Continuing with the above ActiveUser example, this is particularly useful if you can't modify the ActiveUserclass to implement HttpSessionBindingListener (because it's 3rd party or so), or when you want to make use of a "marker interface" on an arbitrary amount of classes so that you can do the listening job in a single central place.
@WebListener
public class ActiveUserListener implements HttpSessionAttributeListener {

    @Override
    public void attributeAdded(HttpSessionBindingEvent event) {
        if (event.getValue() instanceof ActiveUser) {
            logins.add(event.getValue());
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void attributeRemoved(HttpSessionBindingEvent event) {
        if (event.getValue() instanceof ActiveUser) {
            logins.remove(event.getValue());
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void attributeReplaced(HttpSessionBindingEvent event) {
        if (event.getValue() instanceof ActiveUser) {
            logins.add(event.getValue());
        }
    }

}
Here's a real world use case:
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Thanks so much @BalusC. I understood the difference. Thanks so much for the detailed answer. –  benz Jul 22 '13 at 5:06
 
This is a great answer. @BalusC how do you manage to get this all information and present in such nice way.–  Makky Jul 22 '13 at 9:35
 
You're welcome. –  BalusC Jul 22 '13 at 11:52
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