Chapter 22 Creating Web Applications

What is a Web application?

Jaguar's Web application support follows the J2EE and Java Servlet 2.2 specifications.

A Web application is a unit of deployment for interrelated Web content, JavaServer Pages (JSPs), and Java servlets. The Web application contains static files, servlet and JSP implementation classes, and a deployment descriptor that describes how the files, servlets, and JSPs are configured on the host server. The deployment descriptor also allows you to configure application-specific HTTP properties, such as MIME types and per-file security constraints. To tie it all together, a Web application provides an abstract naming convention for the JNDI names of database connections and EJBs.

A Web application represents a subset of the files available on a Web server. Each Web application has a root request path that forms a prefix for URLs that access the JSPs, servlets, and static pages. For example, http://myhost/Finance. Each Web application also has a context root, which is a directory in the server's file system where the Web application's files are deployed. In Jaguar, the context root for Web application wapp is this directory in your Jaguar installation:

$JAGUAR/Repository/WebApplication/wapp