What is Request Dispatcher?

RequestDispatcher interface is used to forward the request to another resource that can be HTML, JSP or another servlet in same application. We can also use this to include the content of another resource to the response. This interface is used for inter-servlet communication in the same context.

There are two methods defined in this interface:

1. void forward(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response) – forwards the request from a servlet to another resource (servlet, JSP file, or HTML file) on the server.
2. void include(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response) – includes the content of a resource (servlet, JSP page, HTML file) in the response.
   We can get RequestDispatcher in a servlet using ServletContext getRequestDispatcher(String path) method. The path must begin with a / and is interpreted as relative to the current context root.