Spring servlet in web.xml with missing contextConfigLocation param-value
spring-mvc
Solution
By default the `DispatcherServlet` will load a xml file named [servlet-name]-servlet.xml.
This is when no `init-param` named `contextConfigLocation` is defined.
However in your case there is an `init-param` named `contextConfigLocation` defined, which tells the `DispatcherServlet` to load nothing but only delegate to the parent context (the one loaded by the `ContextLoaderListener`).
So in short there is a difference between no `init-param` defined or an empty `init-param`.
See also https://jira.springsource.org/browse/SPR-4746.
Problem
I have a web.xml file with (among other things) a servlet that defines an init-param to specify the contextConfigLocation, but the param-value is BLANK? Why is the developer doing this. I can't for the life of me find anything in the documentations for Spring 3.X that tells me what effect this has. ``` <servlet> <servlet-name>restservices</servlet-name> <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class> <init-param> <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name> <param-value></param-value> </init-param> <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup> </servlet> ```