UrlRewriteFilter - combining redirect and forward rules

Question

I'm trying to tame urlrewritefilter, and it looks like like when one rule with redirect matchs another rule with forward I won't see the URL I'm redirecting in the address bar, as expected.

Here is a snippet of config:

<rule>
  <from>/patha</from>
  <to type="redirect">/pathb</to>
</rule>

<rule>
  <from>/pathb</from>
  <to type="forward">/pathc</to>
</rule>

What I am expecting to be done by this rules while I'm trying to access to patha

• Rule for patha redirect my browser to pathb , the URL in address bar is changing .
• Since this rule is not the last one, the rule for pathb is also a good match, so browser get forwarded to pathc, but, because this is forward, the URL in address bar remains pathb .

But actually what is happening is that I'm forwarding to pathc without any changes in address bar.

My question is: Why is this so and how I can actually achieve what I am seeking for?

UPD: I've tested urlrewritefilter forward with redirection in jsp via:

response.setStatus(302);
response.setHeader("Location", "pathb");
response.setHeader("Connection", "close");

The result is the same - URL is not rewritten.

Answer 1

What you are noticing is the expected behaviour. With forward you will never see the URL in the browser. Please see below differences between forward and redirect :

Forward

• a forward is performed internally by the servlet, the browser is completely unaware that it has taken place, so its original URL
• remains intact any browser reload of the resulting page will simple repeat the original request, with the original URL

Redirect

• a redirect is a two step process, where the web application instructs the browser to fetch a second URL, which differs from the original a browser reload of the second URL will not repeat the original request, but will rather fetch the second URL
• redirect is marginally slower than a forward, since it requires two browser requests, not one objects placed in the original request scope are not available to the second request