web xml file

[venkatesh badrinathan]

i am new to servlet technology. i have written my first servlet program and placed it in web-inf/classes folder in tomcat. and my html page in root directory. the issue is whether i should configure web.xml file or not?(although i configured it, i got 404 error, saying that the particular servlet file is not found).
i have heard my friend saying that when we place html file in root directory, we do not need to configure xml file. why is that so?? can someone explain please..

[Harinath Kuntamukkala]

Hi,
You must configure the Servlet in web.xml file.
Thanks,
Hari

[venkatesh badrinathan]

hi harinath, i have configured my xml file but got the err 404 as i have mentioned above. how should i fix this?
my xml file is as follows,

  
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
 
<!DOCTYPE web-app
    PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
    "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">
 
<web-app>
<!--<servlet>
<servlet-name>vec</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>vec</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>vec</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/vec</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
-->
</web-app>
  

here 'vec' is the servlet prog name and the class name itself, whose class file is been placed in classes folder inside web-inf dir.
is there any err in my xml file..(i always go wrong in configuring xml file). please provide some links or explain me if possible. thanks in advance.

[Pavlos Chatzidimitriou]

I think you should remove

 <!--   

and

  -->  

and it will be ok.You can look here for more details.

[venkatesh badrinathan]

althogh i removed the comment tag, my servlet is not invoked.

[William Brogden]

 <servlet-class>vec</servlet-class>  

All classe used in servlets should be in a package to avoid mysterious problems.

You may be following an old pattern that depended on the dreaded Invoker servlet.

Bill

[Harinath Kuntamukkala]

Hi Venkatesh,

The problem is that the server is not able to find your servlet. Please check wheather the corresponding class file (with package structure) is in WEB-INF/classes folder or not.

Thanks,
Hari