ServletContextListener a Servlet 3 Listener on Startup

You can listen to the startup of you web application with ServletContextListener. ServletContextListener allows you to initialise your application when it is deployed. Or clean up resources when the application is destroyed. In Servlet 3 you can register a listener with the @WebListener annotation. Here is an example how you can utilise the ServletContextListener to your advantage.

Project structure

+--src
|   +--main
|       +--java
|           +--com
|               +--memorynotfound
|                   |--ApplicationStartUpListener.java
|       |--resources
|       |--webapp
pom.xml

Maven Dependency

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.0</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

ServletContextListener a Servlet Listener on Startup

In order to listen to the event on startup you need to implement the javax.servlet.ServletContextListener class. This will require you to add two required methods. public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) and public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) which allows you to manipulate the initialization and Destroy phases of your web application. Next we need to add the Servlet 3 @WebListener annotation to configure our application startup listener.

package com.memorynotfound;

import javax.servlet.ServletContextEvent;
import javax.servlet.ServletContextListener;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebListener;

@WebListener
public class ApplicationStartUpListener implements ServletContextListener {

    @Override
    public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
        System.out.println("---- initialize servlet context -----");
        // add initialization code here
    }

    @Override
    public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
        System.out.println("---- destroying servlet context -----");
        // clean up resources
    }
}

<web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee
                             http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd" version="3.1">

    <listener>
        <listener-class>com.memorynotfound.ApplicationStartUpListener</listener-class>
    </listener>
    
</web-app>

Demo

When I deploy my application to a web container you’ll see that the contextInitialized() method is invoked. When I tear down the application you see that the contextDestroyed() method is invoked of the ServletContextListener.

[2015-01-13 06:14:26,870] Artifact servlet-context-listener:war exploded: Artifact is being deployed, please wait...
---- initialize servlet context -----
>> Tear down the application
---- destroying servlet context -----

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References

• Servlet 3 API specification