Tomcat example jsp working. Example servlet not working

[michael tall]

I installed Tomcat 6.xxx on Windows XP. I understand Tomcat 6.0\webapps\ROOT is the default webapps directory. Other subdirectories in webapps directory are docs, host-manager and manager. ROOT has WEB-INF subdirectory and couple of .GIF, .xml, .html, .jsp etc files. I put couple of test jsp and html files and they worked fine. I, however, am unable to understand where to place a compiled servlet file and test. Initially I placed directly in ROOT along with jsp, html files but it didn't work. I then created a classes subdirectory in WEB-INF and placed the compiled servet in classes subdirectory of WEB-INF. Still didn't work. I modified the default web.xml file that is available in WEB-INF directory by adding <servlet> and <servlet-mapping> tags for the compiled servlet. Still no use.
Does anyone know what exactly needs to be done to make the example servlet work?

[Bear Bibeault]

Your post is very short on details.

Exactly where did you place the compiled class? Is it in a package other than the default? What URL are you using to access it? is it properly mapped in the web.xml deployment descriptor? And so on...

[michael tall]

I assumed webapps\ROOT is the default web application directory because there are couple of jsp, GIF files etc. I placed my own example HTML and jsp files in webapps\ROOT and they worked fine. I am trying to figure out how to make an example servlet work. webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF directory doesn't contain classes subdirectory. It has a web.xml file. To the web.xml file, I added <servlet> and <servlet-mapping> tags for the example servlet and then created a classes subdirectory in webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF and placed the example servlet class file in webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF\classes directory. I restarted Tomcat and tested the example servlet from the browser using the url:

http://111.11.11.111:8080/servlet/WelcomeServlet

. web.xml entry is:

  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>sn</servlet-name>
    <display-name>dn</display-name>
    <description>des</description>
    <servlet-class>WelcomeServlet</servlet-class>
  </servlet>
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>sn</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>WelcomeServlet</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

Wondering where I'm going wrong

[Bear Bibeault]

Drop the /servlet prefix.

[michael tall]

I dropped the /servlet from URL and entered

http://111.11.11.11:8080/WelcomeServlet

It didn't work

[Bear Bibeault]

You also forgot the leading / in your mapping.

[michael tall]

Probably this is elementary. But can you make it clearer for me? Should I edit the web.xml? Where should I add the slash?

[Bear Bibeault]

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>sn</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>[B]/[/B]WelcomeServlet</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>    

[Bear Bibeault]

P.S. You might also want to review your naming. sn and dn are not very good and descriptive choices.

[michael tall]

I added slash in the mapping and it worked fine. Thanks much for your timely help.