How is using request getContextPath better than

Question

I have worked on number of J2EE projects where the view layer is JSP  In most projects  I have seen that we reference external resources i e  images  javascript  jsp s  css etc  using the contextPath in the scriptlet   The code is as follows    lt   page contentType  text html  pageEncoding  UTF-8   gt   lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt html gt   lt head gt       lt meta http-equiv  Content-Type  content  text html  charset UTF-8  gt       lt title gt GC Demo Using HandlebarsJS lt  title gt       lt script type  text javascript  src   lt   request getContextPath    gt  js jqueryUI-AutoComplete jquery-1 9 1 js  gt  lt  script gt       lt script type  text javascript  src   lt   request getContextPath    gt  js jqueryUI-AutoComplete jquery-ui-1 10 3 custom js  gt  lt  script gt       lt script type  text javascript  src   lt   request getContextPath    gt  js handlebarsJS handlebars js  gt  lt  script gt       lt link rel  stylesheet  type  text css  href    pageContext servletContext contextPath  js jqueryUI-AutoComplete jquery-ui-1 10 3 custom css  gt    From the above jsp  here I am importing the external resources which are in my same project bundle i e  in my war   Now the same above JSP can be written as below code    lt   page contentType  text html  pageEncoding  UTF-8   gt   lt  DOCTYPE html gt   lt html gt   lt head gt       lt meta http-equiv  Content-Type  content  text html  charset UTF-8  gt       lt title gt GC Demo Using HandlebarsJS lt  title gt       lt script type  text javascript  src     js jqueryUI-AutoComplete jquery-1 9 1 js  gt  lt  script gt       lt script type  text javascript  src     js jqueryUI-AutoComplete jquery-ui-1 10 3 custom js  gt  lt  script gt       lt script type  text javascript  src     js handlebarsJS handlebars js  gt  lt  script gt       lt link rel  stylesheet  type  text css  href     js jqueryUI-AutoComplete jquery-ui-1 10 3 custom css  gt    Here in the second example too I am referencing the resources present in my war   Now considering both of the above two cases  the first case is given more significance as a best practise   Why   and what are the drawbacks of using the second case   Does using the second case  our project gets more tightly coupled with the contextpath   Please explain to me

User · Accepted Answer

request getContextPath  - returns root path of your application  while      - returns parent directory of a file   You use request getContextPath    as it will always points to root of your application  If you were to move your jsp file from one directory to another  nothing needs to be changed  Now  consider the second approach  If you were to move your jsp files from one folder to another  you d have to make changes at every location where you are referring your files   Also  better approach of using request getContextPath   will be to set  request getContextPath    in a variable and use that variable for referring your path    lt c set var  context  value    pageContext request contextPath     gt   lt script src    context  themes js jquery js  gt  lt  script gt    PS- This is the one reason I can figure out  Don t know if there is any more significance to it

[jsp] How is using "<%=request.getContextPath()%>" better than "../"

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