JavaServer Pages, 3rd Edition

Global Configuration Options

You can use the application deployment descriptor (web.xml) to define configuration options that apply to a group of JSP pages. These options are defined as subelements of the <jsp-property-group> element, which in turn is a subelement of the <jsp-config> element. More than one <jsp-property-group> element can be used, each with one or more nested <url-pattern> elements that associate the properties with all JSP pages that match the specified URL patterns:

<web-app>
  ...
  <jsp-config>
    <jsp-property-group>
      <url-pattern>*.jsp</url-pattern>
      ...
    </jsp-property-grop>
    <jsp-property-group>
      <url-pattern>/jsp12/*</url-pattern>
      ...
    </jsp-property-grop>
  </jsp-config>
  ...
</web-app>

With exception for automatic include properties (described later), the JSP container applies the properties only from the <jsp-property-group> with the URL pattern that most closely matches the requested page. The specified properties apply to an entire translation unit, i.e., both the main JSP page and all files it includes using the include directive (with the exception for the file encoding property, which applies to individual files).

The URL pattern format and interpretation are the same as for servlet and filter mappings, described in Chapter 19. That is, one of the following types of patterns can be used:

Exact match rule

A complete context-relative path, e.g., /admin/authenticate.jsp. This rule matches only the specific path.

Longest path prefix rule

A context-relative path with a wildcard ...