Recipe 20.5 Accessing Email from a Servlet Using a JavaBean

Problem

You want to use a JavaBean or helper class to access and display email messages.

Solution

Add the handleMessages( ) and displayMessage( ) methods from Example 20-4 to the JavaBean class defined in Example 20-2. Then use the JavaBean from a servlet's doGet( ) or doPost( ) method.

Discussion

When we last encountered the EmailBean in Example 20-2 it contained a sendMessage( ) method, along with several property "setter" methods (such as setSmtpHost(String host)). If you add the handleMessages( ) and displayMessage( ) methods from Example 20-4 to this same class, you can use the JavaBean to both send and access email.

This code in handleMessages( ) from Example 20-4 needs to be changed to include the EmailBean class name:

//static reference to a constant value if (! check(popAddr)) popAddr = EmailBean.DEFAULT_SERVER;

However, the EmailBean class will have grown quite large as a result of adding the two methods, so you might create two JavaBeans—one for sending mail and another for accessing it. Example 20-5 creates and uses an instance of a special email JavaBean. You must store the bean class in the WEB-INF/classes directory or in a JAR file in WEB-INF/lib.

Example 20-6 also shows a JavaBean that defines handleMessages( ) and displayMessage( ) for dealing with email attachments.

Example 20-5. A servlet uses a JavaBean to access email messages

public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws ServletException, java.io.IOException {
    
    response.setContentType("text/html");
    java.io.PrintWriter out = response.getWriter( );

    out.println(
    "<html><head><title>Email message sender</title></head><body>");
    
    EmailBean emailer = new EmailBean( );
    emailer.setSmtpHost("mail.attbi.com");
    emailer.handleMessages(request,out);
    
      out.println("</body></html>");

}//doGet

Recipe 20.5 Accessing Email from a Servlet Using a JavaBean

Problem

Solution

Discussion

Example 20-5. A servlet uses a JavaBean to access email messages

See Also