Can DOCTYPE in web.xml Be "Localized"

Question

At times when starting WebLogic Server 5.1 (sp6) in a Windows NT
environment, our internet connection is slow and the DTD file specified in
the web.xml file cannot be resolved. I have been able to get around this
problem by changing the DOCTYPE in the web.xml file as follows:
From:
<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC
"-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application2.2//EN"
"http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/web-app_2_2.dtd">
To:
<!DOCTYPE web-app SYSTEM
"file:/d:\weblogic\examples\webapp\ensodex\WEB-INF\web-app_2_2.dtd">
I have placed a copy of Sun's web-app_2_2.dtd file in the specified
directory, and WLS starts up just fine and I can access our web application
without any problems, but ....
Is there any way to simplify the DOCTYPE specification so that the full,
explicit path doesn't have to be specified. A co-worker has been able to
resolve the issue with an Orion server with the following specification,
<!DOCTYPE web-app SYSTEM "web-app_2_2.dtd">, but I have been unable to get
this to work in the WebLogic environment.
I've read the BEA online documentation, and tried placing the
web-app_2_2.dtd file under the document root (defined as
weblogic.httpd.documentRoot=public_html/ in our weblogic.properties file,
but WLS was still unable to locate the file.
Our intent is to place the web-app_2_2.dtd file under WEB-INF along with the
web.xml file since WLS is able to locate the web.xml file successfully, yet
we don't want to have to specify an explicit path to web-app_2_2.dtd file
since this would have to be customized each time the web application is
installed in a different hardware/operating system environment.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
John J. Feigal Voice [phone] (main)
Sr. Technical Consultant [phone] (direct)
Ensodex, Inc. Fax [phone]
4105 N. Lexington Ave., Suite 150 email [email protected]
Arden Hills, MN 55126 WebSite http://www.ensodex.com

Answer 1

If I remember correctly from the spec, anything that follows SYSTEM is
basically arbitrary, meaning the parser can interpret it as it may. It is
possible that Orion uses a different parser implementation or version. The
other possibility has to do with where the file would have to be in order to
be found; it might have to be in the JAR in the directory with the XML, or
it might have to be in the "working directory" that WebLogic is launched
from (i.e. the weblogic directory).
When we had this problem, we inlined the DTD into the XML, which is
supported by the XML specification.
Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
http://www.tangosol.com
+1.617.623.5782
WebLogic Consulting Available
"John J. Feigal" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
At times when starting WebLogic Server 5.1 (sp6) in a Windows NT
environment, our internet connection is slow and the DTD file specified in
the web.xml file cannot be resolved. I have been able to get around this
problem by changing the DOCTYPE in the web.xml file as follows:
From:
<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC
"-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application2.2//EN"
"http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/web-app_2_2.dtd">
To:
<!DOCTYPE web-app SYSTEM
"file:/d:\weblogic\examples\webapp\ensodex\WEB-INF\web-app_2_2.dtd">
I have placed a copy of Sun's web-app_2_2.dtd file in the specified
directory, and WLS starts up just fine and I can access our webapplication
without any problems, but ....
Is there any way to simplify the DOCTYPE specification so that the full,
explicit path doesn't have to be specified. A co-worker has been able to
resolve the issue with an Orion server with the following specification,
<!DOCTYPE web-app SYSTEM "web-app_2_2.dtd">, but I have been unable to get
this to work in the WebLogic environment.
I've read the BEA online documentation, and tried placing the
web-app_2_2.dtd file under the document root (defined as
weblogic.httpd.documentRoot=public_html/ in our weblogic.properties file,
but WLS was still unable to locate the file.
Our intent is to place the web-app_2_2.dtd file under WEB-INF along withthe
web.xml file since WLS is able to locate the web.xml file successfully,yet
we don't want to have to specify an explicit path to web-app_2_2.dtd file
since this would have to be customized each time the web application is
installed in a different hardware/operating system environment.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
John J. Feigal Voice [phone] (main)
Sr. Technical Consultant [phone] (direct)
Ensodex, Inc. Fax [phone]
4105 N. Lexington Ave., Suite 150 email [email protected]
Arden Hills, MN 55126 WebSite http://www.ensodex.com