When a servlet is instantiated?

[Hai Lin]

Hi All,
Suppose, not defining <load-on-startup> in the web.xml.
The servlet instance is created when servlet container starts up or it's not created until a request for this servlet comes?

Thanks a lot!

Hai

[Mark Vedder]

Without a <load-on-startup> configuration setting, the servlet is created the first time it is requested. If your Servlet initialization is resource intensive (say if it needs to create a large number of support objects) then the first user/client to access that Servlet will experience a delay. In such cases, you should use the <load-on-startup>. You only need to define a number -- such as <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup> -- if the initialization order of your Servlets is important. If not, you can simply use <load-on-startup/>.
[ June 03, 2004: Message edited by: Mark Vedder ]

[Hai Lin]

Mark,
Thanks a lot to clear my confusion.

Hai

[Sajee Joseph]

Following are the exact words picked from Servlet 2.3 specification
"The servlet container is responsible for loading and instantiating servlets. The loading and instantiation can occur when the container is started, or delayed until the container determines the servlet is needed to service a request.".

Hope this clears the confusion