Web modules

A web module represents a web application. A web module is created by assembling servlets, JSPs files, and static content such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pages into a single deployable unit. Web modules are stored in WAR files, which are standard Java archive files.

A web module contains:

• One or more servlets, JSP files, and HTML files.

• A deployment descriptor, stored in an XML file.

  The file, named web.xml, declares the contents of the module. It contains information about the structure and dependencies of web components in the module and describes how the components are used at run time.

We can create web modules as stand-alone applications, or we can combine web modules with other modules to create Java EE applications. We can also install and run a web module in the web container of an application server.

Related tasks

Assembling web applications

Web applications: Resources for learning