question on servlets

which two prevent a servlet from handling requests?
A. the servlet's init method returns a non-zero status.
B. the servlet's init method throws a ServletException.
C. the servlet's init method does NOT return within a time period defined by the servlet Container.

the correct options are B and C.

Could somebody explain me as to what exactly happens in case of option C?

the init Servlet method returns void type so it can't returns any non-zero status

I'm not sure that there's one specific, exact behaviour that containers must follow. It it really matters to you, I would test it with the specific version of the specific Servlet runner that you're using.

That said, I would expect reasonably behaviour be for the Servlet runer to send some appropriate HTTP status code such as 504 ("Gateway Timeout") back to the client.

Sorry but I the first my reply I hadn't understand correctly the question!:p

Perhaps It is possible that the servlet container doesn't response to client so client go in timeout.

I'm curious, tomorrow I try this behaviour with glassfish application server.

Code:

---

@Override
    public void init()
    {
    while(true)
    {
            try
            {
                Thread.sleep(5000);
            } catch (InterruptedException ex)
            {
                Logger.getLogger(index.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            }
    }
    }

---

this code on glassfish server never returns(I wait it for 10 minutes).
I think that the servlet container wait for init() method completions