A deployment descriptor (DD) refers to a

configuration file A configuration file, a.k.a. config file, is a computer file, file that stores computer data, data used to configure a software system such as an application software, application, a server (computing), server or an operating system. Some applic ...

for an artifact that is deployed to some

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

/engine. In the

Java Platform, Enterprise Edition Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web serv ...

, a deployment descriptor describes how a component, module or application (such as a

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

enterprise application Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software (EAS), is computer software used to satisfy the needs of an organization rather than its individual users. Enterprise software is an integral part of a computer-based information ...

) should be deployed."The Java EE 5 Tutorial: Packaging Applications"
retrieved 2010-07-13 It directs a deployment tool to deploy a module or application with specific container options, security settings and describes specific configuration requirements.

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

is used for the syntax of these deployment descriptor files. For web applications, the deployment descriptor must be called ''web.xml'' and must reside in the ''WEB-INF'' directory in the web application root. For Java EE applications, the deployment descriptor must be named ''application.xml'' and must be placed directly in the ''META-INF'' directory at the top level of the application .ear file.

Types

In Java EE, there are two types of deployment descriptors: "Java EE deployment descriptors" and "runtime deployment descriptors". The Java EE deployment descriptors are defined by the language specification, whereas the runtime descriptors are defined by the vendor of each container implementation. For example, the ''web.xml'' file is a standard Java EE deployment descriptor, specified in the

Java Servlet A Jakarta Servlet, formerly Java Servlet is a Java (programming language), Java software component that extends the capabilities of a server (computing), server. Although servlets can respond to many types of requests, they most commonly impl ...

specification, but the ''sun-web.xml'' file contains configuration data specific to the

Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server GlassFish is an open-source Jakarta EE platform application server project started by Sun Microsystems, then sponsored by Oracle Corporation, and now living at the Eclipse Foundation and supported by OmniFish, Fujitsu and Payara. The supported v ...

implementation."Sun Java System Application Server Descriptors"
{Dead link, date=July 2019 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes , retrieved 2010-07-13

References

External links

* http://java.sun.com/javaee/reference/glossary/ * http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/index.html - Deployment Descriptor XML Schema Reference * (dead) http://java.sun.com/blueprints/guidelines/designing_enterprise_applications_2e/deployment/deployment5.html

Types

References

External links

See also