Jetty/Reference/jetty.xml syntax

{{Jetty Reference |introduction = The Jetty XML syntax is a straightforward mapping of XML elements to the Java API. Any getter, setter, or method can be invoked in the XML configuration files.

Basic Example

Here is an example of a file which uses the Jetty XML syntax (the example is extracted from etc/jetty.xml, available from your distribution, so it may look familiar):

  <?xml version="1.0"?>
  <!DOCTYPE Configure PUBLIC "-//Jetty//Configure//EN" "http://www.eclipse.org/jetty/configure.dtd">
  <!-- root element -->
  <Configure id="Server" class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server">
    <!-- using a setter on the server class -->
    <Set name="ThreadPool">
      <!-- creating a new object, and customizing it after creation -->
      <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool">
        <Set name="minThreads">10</Set>
      </New>
    </Set>
 
    <!-- calling a non-setter/non-getter class, with arguments -->
    <Call name="addConnector">
      <Arg>
          <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.nio.SelectChannelConnector">
            <Set name="host"><SystemProperty name="jetty.host" /></Set>
             ....
          </New>
      </Arg>
    </Call>
  </Configure>

Overview

DTD and Parsing

The document type descriptor (DTD) describes all valid elements that can be used. The first two lines must reference the DTD, and you must substitute the appropriate class for the object you are trying to configure. See the appropriate jetty-*.xml references.

Jetty XML files are parsed by the org.eclipse.jetty.xml.XmlConfiguration class using the configure.dtd descriptor.

Method Calls

Java objects are configured by a sequence of <New>, <Set>, <Put> and <Call> elements:

<Set name="Test">value</Set>

obj.setTest("value");

<Put  name="Test">value</Put>

obj.put("Test","value");

<Call name="test"><Arg>value</Arg></Call>

obj.test("value");

<New class="com.acme.MyStuff"><Arg/></New>

new com.acme.MyStuff();

Coercing Arguments to a Type

Values are coerced to match method arguments on a best effort approach, but explicit types may also be specified with the type attribute. Supported values for type are:

String, Character, Short, Byte, Integer, Long, Boolean, Float, Double, char, short, byte, int, long, boolean, float, double, URL, InetAddress, InetAddrPort, void

For Java classes, you may use either the fully qualified class name, or just the class name.

Referring to a Class

If you do not specify the classname, Jetty will assume you are calling the method on this. Otherwise, use the class attribute to specify the fully-qualified class name of an object to be configured. (You must always specify the class of the root Configure element.)

Referring to an Object

You can use the id attribute to store a reference to this object when first creating or referring to this object. You can then use the [[#