filter validation

[Bug Menot]

I have this filter.

<filter>
<filter-name>authenticator</filter-name>
<filter-class>ex.sample.filters.Auth</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>authenticator</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</fitler-mapping>

The idea is to validate a user for every request. However, I don't want it to be applied to a request for images or javascripts and such. I only want it to be applied to a request for servlets and JSP's.

Is it possible to use reg-exp for <url-pattern>? If not, what is the best way to do this?

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

It's traditional to use the servlet mapping. For example "/myRoot/*". All servlet URLs begin with this mapping. It is good practice to not refer to JSPs directly, but through a servlet. But if you have loose JSPs, you could use a similar pattern to pick them up.

[Gavi Raaghav]

Bug,
It would be great if you can let me know how your filter works?
From where does it picks up the role access mappings etc etc..

[Bug Menot]

Gavi,
It checks for a valid session by checking for a session attribute that was assigned to the session when it was first created. The attribute assigned corresponds to the role of the user (when they logged in).

Jeanne,
I already thought about making the url-pattern alike for servlets, it's just huge work because I have lots of servlets. Consider the jsp's that <a href= or <form action= to these servlets.
If reg.exp. was available however, I could probably just say !(/images/ | /js/) and stuff.

Thanks for the reply!

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Bug,
As a hack, you could have the filter run for all requests and use an if statement with your regexp to not do anything for the images and javascript directories.

[Bear Bibeault]

I wouldn't condsider that a hack at all. Some of my filters frequently inspect the incoming request to determine what action to take.