Precedence of filter over servlet in Tomcat

Question

I have Apache Tomcat Version 7.0.26 running.

A have a JAX-RS servlet under /test, which calls jsps which in tourn should be handled by the Tomcat servlet engine.

E.g., /test should be handled by jersey, but /test/result.jsp should be handled by the JSP engine.

I don't want the user to see different urls, therefore, I rewrite the jsp URLs to /jsp internally.

Config is like that:

UrlRewriteFilter (in urlrewrite.xml):

<rule>
    <from>^/([^j][^s][^p].*\.jsp)</from>
    <to>/jsp/$1</to>
</rule>

web.xml:

<filter>
   <filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
   <filter-class>org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter</filter-class>
   <!-- set the amount of seconds the conf file will be checked for reload
   can be a valid integer (0 denotes check every time,
      empty/not set denotes no reload check) -->
   <init-param>
     <param-name>confReloadCheckInterval</param-name>
     <param-value>0</param-value>
   </init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
    <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
    <dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>

<servlet>
  <servlet-name>Test</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer</servlet-class>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.jersey.config.property.packages</param-name>
    <param-value>test</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
  <servlet-name>Test</servlet-name>
  <url-pattern>/test/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

A call to /xyz.jsp is redirected to /jsp/xyz.jsp. A call to /test/xyz.jsp leads to 404 - Servlet Test is not available. I thought that filters have precedence over servlets, don't they?

I am aware of the related question Servlet vs Filter, but they don't state anything about the precedence.

BTW: PrettyFaces seems to be similar to UrlRewriteFilter, but I haven't tried it yet. I (currently) like UrlRewriteFilter more.

EDIT: The question How to mix server-side Jax-rs call with native files without prefix? asks the question behind my question.

Answer 1

Actually you can make it work quite easily and you don't need any url rewriting. Just place your jsp's into test/ dir, register Jersey as a servlet filter instead of a servlet (i.e. replace all occurrences of servlet with filter in your web.xml) and add com.sun.jersey.config.feature.FilterForwardOn404 init param set to true. The resulting web.xml should look as follows:

<filter>
  <filter-name>Test</filter-name>
  <filter-class>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer</filter-class>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.jersey.config.property.packages</param-name>
    <param-value>test</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.jersey.config.feature.FilterForwardOn404</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
  </init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
  <filter-name>Test</filter-name>
  <url-pattern>/test/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

Answer 2

It seems that such a setup does not work. Placing all rest services unter /rest and all jsps under /jsp does the trick.