Welcome-file-list in web.xml file of Project:
The tag <welcome-file-list> is used for
specifying the files that needs to be invoked by server by default, if you do
not specify a file name while loading the project on browser.
For e.g. You have created a project named “MyServletProject†and you have few
html pages and servlet classes defined in the project. However in browser you
have given the url like this:
http://localhost:8888/MyServletProject
Generally we give the complete path like this http://localhost:8888/MyServletProject/index.html.
However if you have given the path like above then the webserver will look for
the <welcome-file-list> tag in your project’s web.xml file. Lets say you have
below content in the web.xml file:
<web-app>
....
<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>myhome.htm</welcome-file>
<welcome-file>myindex.htm</welcome-file>
<welcome-file>mydefaultpage.htm</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
....
</web-app>
Based on the welcome file list, server would look for the myhome.htm page if
this doesn’t exist then the second welcome file myindex.html and so on
till it finds a valid welcome file.
Note: If the <welcome-file-list> tag is not defined in web.xml or the welcome
files defined in the <welcome-file> tags does not exist then the server would
look for the following files in the given sequence:
1) index.html
2) index.htm
3) index.jsp