From within a servlet how do you access a variable set inside a corresponding servlet filter?

Question

I'd like to use the following filter to open and close persistence managers.

public final class PersistenceFilter implements Filter {
    private static final PersistenceManagerFactory persistenceManagerFactory
        = JDOHelper.getPersistenceManagerFactory("transactions-optional");

    private static PersistenceManagerFactory factory() {
        return persistenceManagerFactory;
    }

    private static ThreadLocal currentManager = new ThreadLocal();

    public static PersistenceManager getManager() {
        if (currentManager.get() == null) {
            currentManager.set(factory().getPersistenceManager());
        }
        return currentManager.get();
    }
    @Override
    public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res,
            FilterChain chain) throws IOException, ServletException {
        PersistenceManager manager  = null;
        try {
            manager = getManager();
            //Optional: allow all persistent objects implementing a custom interface
            //to be notified of when they are saved and loaded.
            manager.addInstanceLifecycleListener(new PersistHookListener(), PersistHooks.class);
            chain.doFilter(req, res);
        } finally {
            if (manager != null) {
                manager.flush();
                manager.close();
            }
        }
    }
    @Override
    public void init(FilterConfig arg0) throws ServletException {}
    @Override
    public void destroy() {}
}

What I don't know is how to access the manager variable from inside the corresponding servlet that gets called after this filter.

Answer 1

In the filter, put the manager as a request attribute:

request.setAttribute("persistenceManager", manager);

Then, in the servlet, it is accessible with:

PersistenceManager manager = 
     (PersistenceManager) request.getAttribute("persistenceManager");