What is keep-alive header about?

[Mohan Panigrahi]

HTTP is stateless protocol...so what does keep-alive K header mean..in the response to the client?

Thanks,

[Ben Souther]

Think of it as a slight 'bending' of the rules.
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec8.html

From an application developer's viewpoint, it IS stateless.

[D Rog]

Some application developers use keep-alive to improve performance and reduce resource consumption of embedded system. When server returns keep-alive it means for a client to continue using the same connection. However it doesn't mean that the same servlet will continue to service it.