The life cycle of a Servlet is a crucial concept in Java web development, as it defines the way a Servlet is managed from its creation to its destruction. Here's a detailed explanation of the Servlet life cycle:
Initialization Phase
Loading and Instantiation: The Servlet life cycle begins when the Servlet class is first loaded into the memory. This can happen when the server starts or when the Servlet is first accessed by a client request. The Web container or Servlet container is responsible for loading the Servlet class[5].
Initialization with init() Method: After the Servlet class is loaded, the Servlet container creates an instance of the Servlet by calling its no-argument constructor. Once the instance is created, the container calls the init() method. This method is called only once throughout the life of the Servlet and is used for one-time initialization tasks, such as setting up database connections or reading configuration parameters. The init() method takes a ServletConfig object as a parameter, which contains initialization data for the Servlet[1][2][3][5].
Service Phase
Request Handling with service() Method: The core of the Servlet life cycle is the service() method. After initialization, the Servlet is ready to process client requests. Each request is handled by a separate thread that calls the service() method of the Servlet. This method determines the kind of request (GET, POST, etc.) and calls the appropriate method to handle it, such as doGet() or doPost(). The service() method takes ServletRequest and ServletResponse objects as parameters, which represent the client's request and the server's response, respectively[1][2][3][5].
Destruction Phase
Termination with destroy() Method: The final phase of the Se...
