and the * character within web.xml

Question

Useing Spring for Security, I can get the program running using the following code.

Answer 1

UPDATE

You are right the code I posted wont work for the purpose you need.

According to Java Servlet 3.1 Specification, chapter 12.2, the mappings are defined as the following:

In the Web application deployment descriptor, the following syntax is used to define mappings:

• A string beginning with a ‘/’ character and ending with a ‘/*’ suffix is used for path mapping.
• A string beginning with a ‘*.’ prefix is used as an extension mapping.
• The empty string ("") is a special URL pattern that exactly maps to the application's context root, i.e., requests of the form
  http: //host:port//. In this case the path info is ’/’
  and the servlet path and context path is empty string (““).
• A string containing only the ’/’ character indicates the "default" servlet of the application. In this case the servlet path is the
  request URI minus the context path and the path info is null.
• All other strings are used for exact matches only.

The last constraint:

All other strings are used for exact matches only.

For my understanding you wont be able to use the ** wildcard refering to subdirectories, since it will be a specific match.

It seems like <url-pattern>/web/admin/*</url-pattern> should work.