URL patterns use an extremely simple syntax. Every character in a pattern must match the corresponding character in the URL path exactly, with two exceptions. At the end of a pattern, /* matches any sequence of characters from that point forward. The pattern *.extension matches any file name ending with extension. No other wildcards are supported, and an asterisk at any other position in the pattern is not a wildcard.
First, the container prefers an exact path match over a wildcard path match. Second, the container prefers to match the longest pattern. Third, the container prefers path matches over filetype matches. Finally, the pattern <url-pattern>/</url-pattern> always matches any request that no other pattern matches
There are two ways to specify how GET parameters are interpreted:
Set the URIEncoding attribute on the <Connector> element in server.xml to something specific (e.g. URIEncoding="UTF-8").
Set the useBodyEncodingForURI attribute on the <Connector> element in server.xml to true. This will cause the Connector to use the request body's encoding for GET parameters.
The primary key of the sort is the number of literal characters in the full URI matching pattern.
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The secondary key of the sort is the number of template expressions embedded within the pattern—that is, {id} or {id : .+}. This sort is in descending order.
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The tertiary key of the sort is the number of nondefault template expressions. A default template expression is one that does not define a regular expression—that is, {id}.