Garbage Burrito

I'm constructing a new development environment for my team at work. it's Pretty much just 1 large application with a riot of mean absolute paths that ran on a old app server. (sorry no specifics here, gotta be anonymous for the spiders).

so how do I fix my problem?

IIS/Apache Connectors to Tomcat? not exactly simple to the novice. I'm sure it's Not that difficult. Still I want to keep the number of components a small as possible

I ended up deploying to tomcat's Root context. if your WAR/EAR deploying you can always add a small tag to your server.xml to default to the root context.

Ok... now I can deploy to the root context, and cooler you can still modify your project context to match. I use MyEclipse, but this will also work with NetBeans 5.5 beta (now bundled with tomcat).

if your using an exploded deployment for hot swapping, debugging etc. You shouldn't even need modify Tomcat's server.xml. nice how MyEclipse will back up the default ROOT app for you =)

Dave, I'm sure you'll read this sometime, FYI: I'm not using your license of MyEclipse, I bought my Own.

Ahhhh.... no need for any complicated apache/IIS configs. but it would still be cool to learn more about that.

Ahh the nasty things I have come upon when reviewing OPC... (rant about over complex un-commented code deleted, better left un-seen, both the code and rant :)

Remember what Obi-Wan said "Only a Sith deals in absolutes". First recommendation would be to fix the application. Forget about making it relative, that may require a ton of bleary eyed re-programming.

Mucking with the ROOT path is also messy, but if you're just trying to get it running then that might be the best solution.

Apache httpd might help (xampp) and using ProxyPass, but that would be an extra component which you want to avoid.

You might want to do a global search for "/ and add the prepend the applications base URL. You can use a ContextListener and JNDI to get this from the ApplicationContext.

Holy crap, bensoft flashback. Where's Rob?

I have to agree with Dave. I always use an apache front end with Proxy Pass. It's real easy. Also I can put other stuff behind it like Ruby on Rails ;)