Java Servlet Deployment

[moose]

Hey im just in the process of deploying an example java servlet and can't figure out the relevance of the <welcome-file-list> tag from the following code:

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" version="2.4">

<servlet>
<servlet-name>Forwards</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>com.jspbook.Forwards</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Forwards</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/Forwards</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>welcome.html</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
</web-app>

Any ideas guys?

[buntine]

A Welcome File List is an ordered list of documents which will be looked for when a user requests a directory without specifying a filename. This list often contains files like index.html.

Regards,
Andrew Buntine.

[ray326]

Welcome files are to a Java web container as index files are to a web server. They are a list of potential file names that will be matched as defaults when a url resolves to a directory name. They often include index.jsp, index.html, default.htm, etc.

[moose]

Ah, thats a great help! Thanks a lot for clearing that up for me