If you're looking at a web application on your Tomcat server you'll see all the files that you would expect - things like an index.html (or perhaps an index.jsp), images, and perhaps style sheets, a robots.txt and a favicon.ico. You'll also see a WEB-INF directory, and perhaps a META-INF directory that are unbrowsable. What are they?

The META-INF directories related to .jar files ... they contain the manifest (list of contents) of a jar and are created when you write a jar file. Then when you unpack it, the directory appears. Web applications, held in .war files, are just special cases of .jars. You should (in theory) be able to safely delete your META-INF directory and content from an installed web application.

The WEB-INF directory contains a heirarcy in which you'll find the necessary configuration information for your web application, and all the class files for your servlets and classes that are called up by your JSPs (Java Server Pages). The WEB-INF directory is a vital component of your web application, which will not run without it!
(written 2007-05-18, updated 2007-05-21)

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