This information may be used by filters invoked in the outbound direction, after a request was put into asynchronous mode, to determine whether any request and/or response wrappers that they added during their inbound invocation need to be preserved for the duration of the asynchronous operation, or may be released.

If the asynchronous cycle was started with ServletRequest#startAsync(ServletRequest, ServletResponse) , and the request passed is an instance of HttpServletRequest, then the dispatch is to the URI returned by HttpServletRequest.getRequestURI() . Otherwise, the dispatch is to the URI of the request when it was last dispatched by the container.

The following sequence illustrates how this will work: // REQUEST dispatch to /url/A AsyncContext ac = request.startAsync(); ac.dispatch(); // ASYNC dispatch to /url/A // FORWARD dispatch to /url/B getRequestDispatcher("/url/B").forward(request,response); // Start async operation from within the target of the FORWARD // dispatch ac = request.startAsync(); ac.dispatch(); // ASYNC dispatch to /url/A // FORWARD dispatch to /url/B getRequestDispatcher("/url/B").forward(request,response); // Start async operation from within the target of the FORWARD // dispatch ac = request.startAsync(request,response); ac.dispatch(); // ASYNC dispatch to /url/B

This method returns immediately after passing the request and response objects to a container managed thread, on which the dispatch operation will be performed. If this method is called before the container-initiated dispatch that called startAsync has returned to the container, the dispatch operation will be delayed until after the container-initiated dispatch has returned to the container.

The dispatcher type of the request is set to DispatcherType.ASYNC . Unlike forward dispatches , the response buffer and headers will not be reset, and it is legal to dispatch even if the response has already been committed.

Control over the request and response is delegated to the dispatch target, and the response will be closed when the dispatch target has completed execution, unless ServletRequest#startAsync() or ServletRequest#startAsync(ServletRequest, ServletResponse) are called.

Any errors or exceptions that may occur during the execution of this method must be caught and handled by the container, as follows:

There can be at most one asynchronous dispatch operation per asynchronous cycle, which is started by a call to one of the ServletRequest#startAsync methods. Any attempt to perform an additional asynchronous dispatch operation within the same asynchronous cycle will result in an IllegalStateException. If startAsync is subsequently called on the dispatched request, then any of the dispatch or complete() methods may be called.

The path parameter is interpreted in the same way as in ServletRequest#getRequestDispatcher(String) , within the scope of the ServletContext from which this AsyncContext was initialized.

All path related query methods of the request must reflect the dispatch target, while the original request URI, context path, path info, servlet path, and query string may be recovered from the ASYNC_REQUEST_URI , ASYNC_CONTEXT_PATH , ASYNC_PATH_INFO , ASYNC_SERVLET_PATH , and ASYNC_QUERY_STRING attributes of the request. These attributes will always reflect the original path elements, even under repeated dispatches.

There can be at most one asynchronous dispatch operation per asynchronous cycle, which is started by a call to one of the ServletRequest#startAsync methods. Any attempt to perform an additional asynchronous dispatch operation within the same asynchronous cycle will result in an IllegalStateException. If startAsync is subsequently called on the dispatched request, then any of the dispatch or complete() methods may be called.

See dispatch() for additional details, including error handling.

The path parameter is interpreted in the same way as in ServletRequest#getRequestDispatcher(String) , except that it is scoped to the given context .

All path related query methods of the request must reflect the dispatch target, while the original request URI, context path, path info, servlet path, and query string may be recovered from the ASYNC_REQUEST_URI , ASYNC_CONTEXT_PATH , ASYNC_PATH_INFO , ASYNC_SERVLET_PATH , and ASYNC_QUERY_STRING attributes of the request. These attributes will always reflect the original path elements, even under repeated dispatches.

There can be at most one asynchronous dispatch operation per asynchronous cycle, which is started by a call to one of the ServletRequest#startAsync methods. Any attempt to perform an additional asynchronous dispatch operation within the same asynchronous cycle will result in an IllegalStateException. If startAsync is subsequently called on the dispatched request, then any of the dispatch or complete() methods may be called.

See dispatch() for additional details, including error handling.

Any listeners of type AsyncListener that were registered with the ServletRequest for which this AsyncContext was created will be invoked at their onComplete method.

It is legal to call this method any time after a call to ServletRequest#startAsync() or ServletRequest#startAsync(ServletRequest, ServletResponse) , and before a call to one of the dispatch methods of this class. If this method is called before the container-initiated dispatch that called startAsync has returned to the container, then the call will not take effect (and any invocations of AsyncListener#onComplete(AsyncEvent) will be delayed) until after the container-initiated dispatch has returned to the container. void start (java.lang.Runnable run)

The given AsyncListener will receive an AsyncEvent when the asynchronous cycle completes successfully, times out, or results in an error.

AsyncListener instances will be notified in the order in which they were added.

The given AsyncListener will receive an AsyncEvent when the asynchronous cycle completes successfully, times out, or results in an error.

AsyncListener instances will be notified in the order in which they were added.

The given ServletRequest and ServletResponse objects will be made available to the given AsyncListener via the getSuppliedRequest and getSuppliedResponse methods, respectively, of the AsyncEvent delivered to it. These objects should not be read from or written to, respectively, at the time the AsyncEvent is delivered, because additional wrapping may have occurred since the given AsyncListener was registered, but may be used in order to release any resources associated with them.

The returned AsyncListener instance may be further customized before it is registered with this AsyncContext via a call to one of the addListener methods.

The given AsyncListener class must define a zero argument constructor, which is used to instantiate it.

This method supports resource injection if the given clazz represents a Managed Bean. See the Java EE platform and JSR 299 specifications for additional details about Managed Beans and resource injection.

This method supports any annotations applicable to AsyncListener.

The timeout applies to this AsyncContext once the container-initiated dispatch during which one of the ServletRequest#startAsync methods was called has returned to the container.

The timeout will expire if neither the complete() method nor any of the dispatch methods are called. A timeout value of zero or less indicates no timeout.

If setTimeout(long) is not called, then the container's default timeout, which is available via a call to getTimeout() , will apply.

This method returns the container's default timeout for asynchronous operations, or the timeout value passed to the most recent invocation of setTimeout(long) .

A timeout value of zero or less indicates no timeout.