Servlet welcome-file-list

welcome-file-list:

The welcome-file-list attribute of the web.xml file is used to define the list of welcome files.

Sample code of welcome-file-list attribute in web.xml:

<web-app>  

  //other attributes

  <welcome-file-list>  
    <welcome-file>home.html</welcome-file>  
    <welcome-file>welcome.html</welcome-file>  
  </welcome-file-list>  

  //other attributes

</web-app>

 

How it works:

The first web server looks for the welcome-file-list if it exists then it looks for the file defined in the first welcome-file. If this file exists then control is transferred to this file otherwise web server will look at the next welcome file and so on.

If the welcome-file-list does not exist or files defined in the welcome-file-list do not exist then the server will look at the default welcome files in the following order index.html, index.htm, index.jsp, default.html, default.htm, and default.jsp.

Default welcome file list:

<welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.html</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>index.htm</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.html</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.htm</welcome-file>
    <welcome-file>default.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>

 

Example of welcome-file-list:

web.xml

<!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?-->
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" 
xsi:schemalocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">

  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>welcome.html</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
  
</web-app>

 

welcome.html

<title>welcome</title>

    
<h1>This is a welcome file list program.</h1>