Question

I’d like to catch a specific url pattern and forward to a single static page. So if I see any of the following:

http://www.example.com/students?name=bob
http://www.example.com/students?name=mary
...

then I’d like to forward to a static page like:

http://www.example.com/studentsTemporaryPage.jsp

Is there something I can add to my web.xml file to redirect any of the above patterns (where the parameter names at the change can vary) to my static page?

I’m using google app engine (java), but think it might be the same for any servlet-based server?

Thank you

Answer 1

Create a forward servlet:

public class ForwardServlet extends HttpServlet {

    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {

        String name = request.getParameter("name");
        // you can do some manupulations based on 'name' here
        String target = "/studentsTemporaryPage.jsp";
        RequestDispatcher dispatcher = getServletContext()
            .getRequestDispatcher(target);
        dispatcher.forward(request, response);
     }
}

then map it to /students

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>ForwardServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>com.packagename.ForwardServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>ForwardServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/students</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>