title: Few general questions about "org.eclipse.wst.server.core" folder of a web application in Java
body: <p>I have a few questions regarding the <strong>org.eclipse.wst.server.core</strong> folder in <code>.metadata\.plugins</code> folder in a eclipse work space. I know that while running an application in local host, this is the folder where we have to replace files for front end, like <code>JSP</code>, <code>JS</code> files, <code>CSS</code> files, <code>HTML</code> files, <code>Images</code> etc.</p>
  
  <p>There will be some <code>tmp</code> folders into which I have to replace the files into respective locations. This folder will be having another folder with structure of a <code>WAR</code> file which I'll take from my work space and sometimes there will be multiple <code>tmp</code> folders like <code>tmp0</code>, <code>tmp1</code>, <code>tmp2</code> etc (most of them having all required files). When there are multiple folders it is really confusing to decide that into which folder I need to replace the file(s).</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xw5dM.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/xw5dM.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>Then I'll have to stop the server, kill all the <code>java</code> running in background (manually) and have to clear all the <code>tmp</code> folders (because if the java is not killed properly the <code>jar</code> files inside <code>tmp</code>'s cannot be deleted saying its currently being used). I guess one among these <code>tmp</code> folders are used by the server to run the application.</p>
  
  <p>After cleaning all the <code>tmp</code> folders if I start the server again, the first file created in that folder (<strong>org.eclipse.wst.server.core</strong>) will be one <code>servers.xml</code>, then one <code>tmp0</code> will be created may be <code>tmp1</code>. When entire project is published only one <code>tmp</code> folder will be there, if I publish multiple times, another <code>tmp</code> folder will be created, may be 2nd time, 3rd time or nth time.</p>
  
  <p><strong>So my questions are</strong></p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Is there a general name for <strong>org.eclipse.wst.server.core</strong> folder?</li>
  <li><p>Why multiple <code>tmp</code> folders are created when publised multiple times? Can we restrict it into a single <code>tmp</code> folder? </p></li>
  <li><p>After the project is published, is there a possibility that server will use multiple <code>tmp</code> folders for different request. Like for first request I uses <code>tmp0</code> and when I refresh the page it uses <code>tmp1</code> folder?</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p><strong>Edited regarding the 3rd question</strong></p>
  
  <p>I opened all the <code>xml</code> files in the folder given in the above image, and in <code>tmp-data.xml</code>, I found this content</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?&gt;
  &lt;temp-directories&gt;
    &lt;temp-directory age="0" key="GlassFish v2.1 Java EE 5 at localhost" path="tmp0"/&gt;
  &lt;/temp-directories&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Where <code>path</code> attribute is given value as <code>tmp0</code>. So I'm guessing that will be the answer to my third question. I'm guessing this file will be created when there are multiple <code>tmp</code> folders, because after deleting all <code>tmp</code> folders and files in the folder and after publishing the work space the <code>tmp-data.xml</code> file was not present.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edited regarding the WTP</strong></p>
  
  <p>I don't have much details about WTP, but when I clicked <code>Help</code> and selected <code>About Eclipse</code> in my eclipse I got this window</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cd3lL.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cd3lL.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>