JavaServer Faces

Web Application Deployment and Runtime Environment

A JSF-based application consists of a lot of different pieces: user interface template files (e.g., JSP pages), static HTML files and image files, as well as class files for business logic, custom components, and so on. All pieces are packaged and deployed as a web application archive (WAR). The servlet specification describes the internal structure of the WAR and an application deployment descriptor containing configuration and metadata for the application.

The WAR structure contains directories for files accessed directly by browsers, such as HTML files and JSP pages, and directories for configuration files and classes seen only by the application. Here’s part of the WAR structure for the example application we’ll develop in this book:

/cover.gif
/index.html
/expense/reports.jsp
...
/WEB-INF/web.xml
/WEB-INF/classes/JSPSourceServlet.class
...
/WEB-INF/lib/commons-logging.jar
/WEB-INF/lib/jsf-api.jar
/WEB-INF/lib/jsf-ri.jar
/WEB-INF/lib/jsfbook.jar
...

The top level in this structure is the document root for all public web application files; in other words, all the files requested directly by the browser. For instance, the index.html file is a page with links to all book examples, and the expense/reports.jsp file is a JSP page used as a template in an example application.

The WEB-INF directory is the root for internal application files and it’s inaccessible to a browser. This directory contains the application deployment descriptor ...