Servlet Context in a Nutshell??????

I am a newcomer to Servlets and relatively new to Java. I have not found a very clear explanation of what a servlet "Context" is and can therefore only assume that its so simple as to not need further explanation.
Here goes;
1. You write your Servlet code, compile it.
2. If you add this Servlet to the classes directory of a web-app called "MyWebApp" then the context for that particular servlet is "/MyWebApp"
3. Adding it to the classes directory of other web apps gives a different "context" for each one.
4. You can add a servlet to a web-app ("context") by adding the servlet URI to the deployment descriptor of the web-app????????(THis one I am really not sure of)
Summary: The context of a particular servlet is the name of the particular web-app within which it resides or is referred to
Maybe some of you experts out there could shed some light on this and I could create a document explaing context a post it on the web sowmwhere for other poor beginners like myself.
Thanks in advance.

Well, some experts will wanna kill me for told that, but, lets go....
Comparing with the JVM, a context is like a class path (of course they have many differences). In other worlds the context is a directory (or war file) where the web server (for example TOMCAT) wiil search your .class files (or.war, .jar, etc...)
All context are "pointed" to a dir, for example you can point the context /myapps to a dir of your OS (for example /home/your_username or in a windows system - C:\Program Files.
Then when you acces this context at the browser, the browser will show this directory hierarchy. For you execute your servlet you need to create a WSDL (the descritor file). This file is nothing more than a XML document (that had rules) and link a servlet at a context, (for example the servlet Hello can pointed to the path /hello, and then, this servlet is "install" at the context /myapps). After this, you can access your servlet at the path http://computer_address/myapps/hello.
Note: Step by step, you need:
1) create the web application strucuture directory (the WEB-INF, classes, etc...)
2) write the servlet
3) write the web.xml
4) compile the servlet
5) create a context - point the context to the web app structure "father"
6) install this servlet at the context
7) access the servlet
I hope this help you to understand some things, but for learning I recomended the Tomcat manual!!!! Good Luck.
Giscard

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