Difference between the getRequestDispatcher and getNamedDispatcher in ServletContext? Example

The ServletContext class provides two methods getRequestDispatcher(String url-pattern) and getNamedDispatcher(String name), which can be used to dispatch a request to a particular servlet. The main difference between getRequestDispatcher() and getNamedDispatcher() method is that former accepts a URL pattern or path while later agrees with a Servlet name defined in deployment descriptor or web.xml file, both return an instance of RequestDispatcher class, which can further use to forward or redirect a request in Java web application. Let' see some more detail about these two methods and how they work.

getRequestDispatcher(String url-pattern)

This method is defined in ServletContext class and it returns a RequestDispatcher object that acts as a wrapper for the resource located at the given URL pattern or path, for example, if we have the following servlet-mapping in our deployment descriptor :

<servlet-mapping>
  <servlet-name>InfoServlet</servlet-name>
  <url-pattern>/info</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

than

RequestDispatcher dispatch = request.getRequestDispatcher("/info");

will return RequestDispatcher for InfoServlet, here /info represents the url-pattern of the InfoServlet.

You can also use RequestDispatcher to forward a request to a JSP page, as shown below.

RequestDispatcher dispatch = request.getRequestDispatcher("/index.jsp");

Here path to index.jsp is relative to the root of the web application, that's why we have a forward slash prefix: "/index.jsp" to forward the request, just call dispatch.forward(request, response) where request and response are HttpServletRequest and HttpServletRespose object.

If you are interested to learn more about request forwarding in Servlet, you can further see these free Servlet and JSP Courses to learn more about HttpServlet class and other essential Servlet concepts.

getNamedDispatcher(String name)

This method is also defined inside ServletContext class, similar to the previous method it also accepts a String argument but it's not the path or URL pattern, instead of its the name of the Servlet where you want to forward the request. For example, if we have the following Servlet declaration in web.xml :

<servlet>
  <servlet-name>HelloServlet</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>com.message.HelloServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

then getNamedDispatcher("HelloServlet") will return a RequestDispatcher to forward request to our HelloServlet, as shown below:

RequestDispatcher dispatch = request.getNamedDispatcher("HelloServlet");
dispatch.forward(request, response);

That's all about difference between getRequestDispatcher() and getNamedDispatcher() method of ServletContext class. Though both return an instance of RequestDispatcher to forward a request to some other Servlet or JSP, the former takes a URL pattern while later takes the name of the Servlet.

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