Web Application directory mapping

Question

I'm working on a small web application that contains some JSPs, Servlets and static HTML pages. There are also some filters to implement a small authentication/authorization mechanism. My questions are:

• How can I map an entire directory of JSPs to another? Here's an example: I want to map all the URLs like localhost:8080/WebAppName/pages/*.jsp to localhost:8080/WebAppName/*.jsp . How can I do that without writing an entry in the web.xml for each JSPs page in the directory 'pages'?

• After having mapped these URLs to new ones, what do I have to write in the tag of in the web.xml? The mapped URL (WebAppName/*.jsp) or the real one (WebAppName/pages/*.jsp)?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You could make a servlet - or JSP - that has a mapping *.xhtml (other extension). Using the request URI it can do a dynamic include of the corresponding JSP from pages.

In servlet:

String pagesPath = "pages/" + ...;
request.getServletContext(pagesPath).getRequestDispatcher().include(request,
                                                                    response);

I doubt it is a good idea, as it does not add something: you might even need to adapt all JSPs (other extension). Or rename the JSPs to .jspf.

In general I use JSPs under WEB-INF/jsp or so; so they are not publicly accessible. And use a similar technique: creating a model in the servlet, and then to the view as JSP.