GetRequestDispatcher: probably basic problem

Question

This is probably one of the "basics", but neither the course I took on servlets and JSPs at Sun nor either of the books I have on servlets and JSPs really tell me what I need to know, and I can't find an answer through Google either, so please be patient with what is probably basic.
I'm trying to dispatch a JSP from my FrontController servlet. My ap0plication is pretty straightforward, so I'm not tyring to do anything tricky, just basic servlet programming. I'm getting an error from the web server (Tomcat) when it tries to find the resource. I get a 404. Now I know that means normally that the page cnanot be found.
Here's the error:
The requested resource (/display_contract.jsp) is not available.
Here's the code:
if(request.getParameter("thePage").equalsIgnoreCase("index"))
                        RequestDispatcher rd =getServletContext().
                            getRequestDispatcher("/display_contract.jsp");
                        rd.forward(request, response);
                    }The display_contract.jsp is located in the WEB-INF directory (not a subdirectory below it). What am I doing wrong? Equally important, where is the exact requirement for what to specify in terms of both contents and format desribed? I'd prefer a book to a spec, because I find specs, even when I was a Sun employee, to be less than helpful at times on these sorts of technical details. Must this start with a "/"? Does anyone explain that? All the examples I've been able to find assume you've set up your web app structure the way the example does, so there's no explanation of what needs to be in the resource name, e.g., absolute path vs. relative path, wild cards, etc., so I can't begin to see what I'm doing wrong. I'm not unwilling to read. I just can't find any book or article to date that explains this at the level of detail I need to resolve my own problem. Thanks.
Ken

Answer 1

I think the problem is that /display_contract.jsp will be translated to http://www.yourdomain.com/yourapplication/display_contract.jsp, but the file is hidden in your WEB-INF.
Either move the jsp up one directory or add an entry to your web.xml to make the jsp available.