This question is not about Tomcat per se, but it does affect it. It's really about the EE specification in regards to any servlet container. I'd like to get professional opinions on this part of the specification.
I am quoting from EE 5.0 (see link below), section 8.3.1, paragraph 3c: The Deployer must... "Assign a context root for each web module included in the Java EE application. The context root is a relative name in the web namespace for the application. Each web module must be given a distinct and non-overlapping name for its context root." So given this scenario: /context/something <-- context is /context /context/something/somethingelse <-- context is /context/something The specification puts no limitations on the context root character set (so it can include a slash). With that said, would you consider these "overlapping" contexts? I noticed one application server supporting this paradigm without issue, but it seems like a violation of the specification. Please advise. Also, since Tomcat doesn't support "applications" (EAR?), how should the specification be interpreted in the absence of that artifact? [1] http://download.oracle.com/otndocs/jcp/javaee-5.0-fr-eval-oth-JSpec/ Cheers, Paul
