Forward slash query

[Abhay Agarwal]

We have many web.xml elements
a. which can take value starting with forward slash
b. which can NOT take value starting with forward slash.
c. which can take value starting with or without forward slash
Do we have any key rules/guidelines/tricks that can help me remember which elements take values with forward slash and which take values without forward slash?

~ Abhay

[Ankit Garg]

Lets make a list of tags which actually take path to files or URL patters in web.xml (and which are covered in the exam, if I missed any you can add them)

url-pattern (inside servlet-mapping, filter-mapping and web-resource-collection tags)
jsp-file (inside servlet tag)
welcome-file (inside welcome-file-list tag)
location (inside error-page tag)
tag-lib-location (inside taglib which is itself inside jsp-config tag)
form-login-page and form-error-page (inside form-login-config tag)

Now see which tags can accept paths starting from / or without / or both and see if you can find any fix pattern. Some of the information on the pages that I linked might be wrong, for example the value of jsp-file tag must start with / as the spec says

Servlet 2.4 spec wrote:The jsp-file element contains the full path to a JSP file within the web application beginning with a “/”.