Declaring Links in HTML / JSP pages

[James Davidson]

I seem to recall a discussion in this forum some time ago describing a better way to declare URLs in <link> and <script> tags. I believe it described how to declare the URLs relative to the web application root? I have always used relative URLS, e.g. "../css/style.css" simply because it has been easy to do. However, now I have a JSP page that may be invoked via different URL mappings, e.g. /1/2 and /1/2/3. If I use relative URLS, one mapping will not work. My web application folder structure is standard RAD 7 / WebSphere 6, i.e:

WebContent/css
WebContent/js
etc.

Is there a way to declare the CSS links so that they will work for all mappings?

[Bauke Scholtz]

Make use of the <base> element in the HTML head. All relative URL's in the page will be relative to it then.

[Bear Bibeault]

Or, use <c:url> to form your URLs. Or, see the JSP FAQ for info on how to generate server-relative URLs.

All these approaches have their pros and cons, but the page-relative URLs you have been using are obviously not going to work.

[James Davidson]

Thanks Bear. I found what I was looking for in the FAQ. What I remember was something similar to the following; I just couldn't find it.

    
<img src="<%=request.getContextPath()%>/images/my-image.jpg" />

Bauke, I'll look into the <base> element. I am unfamiliar with it Thanks!

[Bear Bibeault]

You should update to using JSTL and El as opposed to scriptlets and scriptlet expressions.