Invoking multiple servlets from a single request

Question

Hi. I'm wondering if it's possible to execute multiple servlets within a single request and context. I have a servlet defined in web.xml which says:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>firstServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>mypackage.First</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>firstServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
(clearly this one gets invoked upon every request in the context)
But I also have another servlet which gets invoked when another condition applies:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>secondServlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>mypackage.Second</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>secondServlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.ftl</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
So if the url was http://localhost:8080/mycontext/page.ftl, I want both servlets to get executed. Is there anyway I can do this? I've tried the above code and it doesn't work. How would I do this (or can I even do it)?
Thanks,
Dylan

Answer 1

depending on what your servlets do, you might also think of using filters. say you have a first servlet that compresses the respone you would be better off to implement this as a filter. than you might have a second serlvet that does request logging stuff. this might also be better than in a filter, so you chain first and second filter. the business logic is put in servlet three i.e.