Question

I am using ServletRequestListener to execute certain logic when receiving requests from a web service java application.
At some point, i want to stop listening to each request received. Is there a way to stop or disable the ServletRequestListener listener programmatically?

Answer 1

Whilst it’s possible to add a listener programmatically, it is not possible to stop or remove a listener programmatically. Best what you can do is to let it check some application wide variable before continuing and then toggle that application wide variable instead.

E.g.

@Override
public void requestInitialized(ServletRequestEvent event) {
    if (event.getServletContext().getAttribute("disableListener") == Boolean.TRUE) {
        return;
    }

    // Do the original job here.
}

@Override
public void requestDestroyed(ServletRequestEvent event) {
    if (event.getServletContext().getAttribute("disableListener") == Boolean.TRUE) {
        return;
    }

    // Do the original job here.
}

and to disable it, just do

servletContext.setAttribute("disableListener", true);

and to re-enable it, just do

servletContext.removeAttribute("disableListener");