Is WEB-INF in the CLASSPATH?

Question

Is the WEB-INF folder in the CLASSPATH of a Java Web application?

Mooned

This question seems to ask a similar thing: #305785 – Actinism

Answer 1

I'm assuming you're referring to the /WEB-INF directory in the root of the web application folder structure.

No, it's not in the classpath.

/WEB-INF/classes is on the classpath though, and so are the JAR files in /WEB-INF/lib.

Georgeannageorgeanne

If /WEB-INF is not on the classpath, then why are the official 'deployment descriptor files' , such as web.xml , in that folder? Do they still get loaded somehow even if they are supposedly not on the classpath? – Plesiosaur

Answer 2

Additionally files in WEB-INF are protected against being requested by the web-container, i.e. they are invisible to the outside world.

Mobile

Unless you forward the request (although BEA had a broken implementation of this many years ago). – Mistrot

You can almost always circumvent protection. – Anticipatory