Mapping of Web App context root and the physical directory of the web app

Question

I'm running Weblogic 7.0 on Windows2000.The physical directory of my web application
is D:\WL8\weblogic81\TestDeploy\build\TestWebApp and under these directory I have
my JSPS, static HTML and WEB-INF. I define the context path of this web app in
the weblogic.xml ;-
<weblogic-web-app>
     <context-root>/testapp</context-root>
</weblogic-web-app>
As a result of deploying this web app in the server (or it may be created manually
also), the following entry gets inserted in the server's config.xml ,-
<Application Deployed="true" Name="TestWebApp"
Path="D:\WL8\weblogic81\TestDeploy\build" TwoPhase="true">
<WebAppComponent Name="TestWebApp" Targets="myserver" URI="TestWebApp"/>
</Application>
Now, whenever I make a request of the form "http://localhost:7001/testapp/..",
it's properly executing my web app. My question is, how does the container knows
that for any request for the web app with context path as 'testapp', it has to
server files from D:\WL8\weblogic81\TestDeploy\build\TestWebApp. In the above
process, nowhere such mapping is specified. I expected something like Tomcat's
server.xml, where in docbase we clearly specify this mapping between the context
path and the physical directory. Please help.

Answer 1

Let me give some more details and hopefully this will make things clearer.
Say you deploy /foo/bar/myweb.war and in myweb.war you configure a
context-root of /rob
During deployment, the server creates an ApplicationMBean with a path of
/foo/bar/. It then creates a WebAppComponent with a uri of myweb.war.
Next, deployment calls back on the web container and tells it to deploy
the WebAppComponent. The web container reads the myweb.war, parses
descriptors etc. The web container then updates its data structures to
register that myweb.war has a context path of /rob. (It has to figure
out all the other servlet mappings as well.)
When a request for /rob/foo comes in, the web container consults its
data structures to determine which webapp and servlet receives the
request. This is not a linear search of all webapps and servlets.
There's much better ways to do pattern matching.
Hope this clears things up. Let me know if you still have questions.
-- Rob
Arindam Chandra wrote:
Thanks for the answer. Still one thing is not clear. Whatever context path I declare
for my web app as the value of <context-root> element in the weblogic.xml (in
my example it's "/testapp"), it is no where mapped with the "URI" attribute (or
any other attribute, sub-element whatsoever in the <Application> element).
Application Deployed="true" Name="TestWebApp"
Path="D:\WL8\weblogic81\TestDeploy\build" TwoPhase="true">
<WebAppComponent Name="TestWebApp" Targets="myserver" URI="TestWebApp"/>
</Application>
So when a request of the form http://myweblogic.com:7001/testapp/... arrives at
the server, how does the server knows that it has to serve this request with files
from D:\WL8\weblogic81\TestDeploy\build\TestWebApp ? It should not be like the
web container iterates thru all the web application entries in config.xml and
tries to match with one context-root declaration. I repeat, I expected some mapping
similar to Tomcat's server.xml, where in the <docbase> element u clearly specify
the mapping between the context path and the physical directory
Rob Woollen <[email protected]> wrote:
Arindam Chandra wrote:
I'm running Weblogic 7.0 on Windows2000.The physical directory of myweb application
is D:\WL8\weblogic81\TestDeploy\build\TestWebApp and under these directoryI have
my JSPS, static HTML and WEB-INF. I define the context path of thisweb app in
the weblogic.xml ;-
<weblogic-web-app>
     <context-root>/testapp</context-root>
</weblogic-web-app>
As a result of deploying this web app in the server (or it may be createdmanually
also), the following entry gets inserted in the server's config.xml,-
<>So the server will look for your web application at the Application Path
(D:\WL8\weblogic81\TestDeploy\build|) + the web uri (TestWebApp). So
it
maps the context-root you've specified /testapp to that path.
It's a little clearer in the case where you had a full-fledged EAR.
Then you'r application path would map to the "root" of the EAR, and the
uris would point to the various modules (eg webapps.)
-- Rob
Now, whenever I make a request of the form "http://localhost:7001/testapp/..",
it's properly executing my web app. My question is, how does the containerknows
that for any request for the web app with context path as 'testapp',it has to
server files from D:\WL8\weblogic81\TestDeploy\build\TestWebApp. Inthe above
process, nowhere such mapping is specified. I expected something likeTomcat's
server.xml, where in docbase we clearly specify this mapping betweenthe context
path and the physical directory. Please help.