JSP, Tag Libraries, Tomcat 4.1

Question

Due to an internal decision to place all content within certain categories: for example, we would like all our JSP pages to be in one directory, our TLD files to be in one directory, our images to be in one directory, etc. I would like to be able to set up two Tomcat Contexts (sites). One for /jsp and one for /tld. Is it possible to load the tld and tag class handler in one context and the jsp in another context and call the tag handler even though they are in separate sites? The first reaction someone might have is to just place everything in separate directories under the same context. Well, we do not want to do this because we do not want to use relative URLs. Our testing systems are Window 2000 so it is not a big deal. But our production server is OPENVMS. We want to use aliases for everything. /jsp for JSP pages. /tld for tag libraries, etc. Any thoughts?
Thank you.

Answer 1

Yes, this is a follow-up question to my initial question. However, I was trying to take a different approach after reading the inital comments and doing lots and lots of stupid little tests.
I have tried all three methods of using the mappings that you have suggested. And in every case, I cannot get the JSP page to recognize the location of the TLD from the URI unless I use a context in Tomcat or a relative URL for the URI declaration in the JSP page. So I must be doing something wrong. I am going to post what information is not business sensitive and see if you can find an error.
However, with that being said. We have a specific alias/directory structure we must maintain on the OPEN VMS system. In order to do so, so we can maintain a programmer and a "live" environment we must be able to use these aliases for all our file types. Don't get me wrong, we can use these alias' within the same context of Tomcat, but we must make sure that we can still access or JSP, TLD, and servlets using some sort of alias and NOT using relative URLs. All the dynamic stuff in Tomcat while trying to use Apache for the static content. On OPENVMS, there are things called logicals which can basically be set up as an alias. The logical can point to a specific value, a directory, a group of directories, or even a specific file name or command procedure or anything else you can logically use it for. We have to use these logicals in order to set up our site. These logicals are part of the system security of OPENVMS and this helps us determine which enviroment we need to use for which user.
Hope this gives a bit more informed information.
Currently, the tld and .class file are packaged into a webMenuTag.jar file in the "vsjsp" site.
There are no references to the TLD or Tag Library in the web.xml file. So here is the tld file and also the snippet of the jsp file. The class file is called webMenuTagHandler.class.
Thank you.
TLD:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<!DOCTYPE taglib
PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD JSP Tag Library 1.2//EN"
"http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-jsptaglibrary_1_2.dtd">
<taglib>
<tlib-version>1.0</tlib-version>
<jsp-version>1.2</jsp-version>
<short-name>webMenu</short-name>
<uri>webMenuTag</uri>
<description>
Tag library to print the menu on WWW site pages
</description>
<tag>
<name>webMenuTagHandler</name>
<tag-class>com.xxxxx.webMenuTagHandler</tag-class>
<description>Create menu and framework for web pages.</description>
<attribute>
     <name>menuStyle</name>
     <required>false</required>
     <rtexprvalue>true</rtexprvalue>
</attribute>
<attribute>
     <name>docTitle</name>
     <required>false</required>
     <rtexprvalue>true</rtexprvalue>
</attribute>
<attribute>
     <name>pageHeading</name>
     <required>false</required>
     <rtexprvalue>true</rtexprvalue>
</attribute>
<attribute>
     <name>navBarName</name>
     <required>false</required>
     <rtexprvalue>true</rtexprvalue>
</attribute>
<attribute>
     <name>navBarLocation</name>
     <required>false</required>
     <rtexprvalue>true</rtexprvalue>
</attribute>
<attribute>
     <name>htmLocation</name>
     <required>true</required>
     <rtexprvalue>true</rtexprvalue>
</attribute>
</tag>
</taglib>
JSP:
<%@ page contentType="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" language="java" import="com.xxxxx.*,java.io.*,java.util.*,javax.servlet.*,javax.servlet.http.*,javax.servlet.jsp.*,org.apache.jasper.runtime.*"%>
<%@ taglib uri="webMenuTag" prefix="webMenu" %>
<html>
<webMenu:webMenuTagHandler docTitle="Test Page" htmLocation="top" navBarName="HOME"/>
... content...
</html>