ssi and servlet chaining using tomcat 4

Hi:
I am new both in javaranch and servlet/jsp area.
I am reading "java servlet programming" now.
I am wondering if tomcat supports ssi(server side include) and chaining. How can I run it? where I can find information?
Any help will be very appreciated.
Mei Xiao

Hi Mei,
is it possible that you read an old version of that book??? It sounds like. If its 1. edition its outdated. It was quite a good book, but many things changed.
As far as I know servlet-chaining is replaced by RequestDispatcher.
Axel

Hi janssen:
Thank you for your help!
I did read version 1, which I borrowed from the liberary. Maybe I need to buy a new one.

Hi Mei Xiao,
They say it is a very good book, but from a exam standpoint of view it does not cover JSP and exam-takers recently told that there are lots of JSP questions in the exam.
Best books for exam-preparations are:
- Mayority says: Books of Marty Hall. He recently published a new version covering the Servlet 2.3, JSP 1.2 specs. You can get all chapters of the old version as free pdf: http://pdf.coreservlets.com/
This old version covers Servlet 2.2 and JSP 1.1. It is much less outdated than Jason Hunter edition 1.
- I use Wrox JSP2 Professional ed. I like it very much, because its less api and more introducing/solidifying you in a "how-to-design" OO point of view.
Axel

Mei,
I also tried a lot when studying that book (1st edition) and came to a decision that Java Web Server was supporting that SSI/Servlet chaining and currently not supported by Tomcat. Probabaly some packages r to be downloaded or something like this.

U can check servlets.com, o'reilly.com or javaworld.com by searching for "Jason Hunter".
Does the 2nd edition also included those codes? I m yet fond of the 2nd edition that's the best book for any servlet programmer on earth...

Chaining is what people did before filters and request dispatcher. Java Web Server was replaced about 2 years ago when Sun gave all the code to the Apache organization for Tomcat. Tomcat has been the official "reference implementation" for quite a while.
Bill

Thanks for all your reply. I am clear now.
But I cannot even make getInitParameter() work,
when tried the example in Jason's book. Could u tell me what's the reason?

Mei,
Only coding is not enough for getInitParameter() to work. Realize what sort of init? Here the initialization parameter for this particular servlet is subject to get from a deployment descriptor (/WEB-INF/web.xml) where there will be a servlet element with init-param sub-element with the appropriate name-vale pair written their earlier to wrok....