WebDAV servlet and sub-webapp collection creation

[Garret Wilson]

Trying to get @#$! Jakarta Slide to work, I created a routine that would 
go through the elements of a URI path and create all collections that 
didn't exist (using the WebDAV MKCOL method). The first time I tried it 
out, it worked fine---but I had forgotten that I was using the Tomcat 
WebDAV servlet, which means the first part of the path is virtual:

"http://localhost/webapp/webdav/existing/new/file.txt";
In other words, "webapp" is my webapp and the Tomcat WebDAV servlet is 
mapped to "/webdav/*". "existing" already exists, but "new" does not.

The result of my test was surprising:
"http://localhost/webapp/"; did not exist; created successfully
"http://localhost/webapp/webdav/"; did not exist; created successfully
"http://localhost/webapp/webdav/existing/"; exists
"http://localhost/webapp/webdav/existing/new/"; did not exist; created 
successfully

The last two I expected---"existing" existed, and "new" didn't exist, 
yet was created successfully.

However, I didn't expect the servlet to think that "webapp" and "webdav" 
did not exist---and I certainly didn't expect the Tomcat WebDAV servlet 
to actually create them!

It turns out the Tomcat WebDAV servlet created the "webdav" directory 
inside my webapp root directory. This is incorrect, as "webdav" is a 
virtual directory mapped to the servlet---it makes no sense to create 
it, and it should probably show it as existing.

Stranger still is the successful creation of the "webapp" directory. 
Where did the Tomcat WebDAV servlet create this directory? I can't find 
it anywhere, and there's nowhere it would even make sense to create it, 
as it's simply a virtual directory mapped to my web app!

Garret
P.S. Tomcat 5.5.4; J2SE 5.0; WinXP Pro SP2
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