The DAV4J client API provides Java client applications with a simple, rich interface for accessing resources managed by a WebDAV server. Using this API, client applications are relieved from managing the details of the low level HTTP communication protocol, constructing and parsing XML request and response entity bodies, and the complexities of the WebDAV semantics. DAV4J also provides a servlet that with WebSphere AppServer extends the Apache Web server with the WebDAV Class 2 protocol.
Local access is used if the host name in the URL is the local host and no port is specified.
A Java servlet that along with WebSphere AppServer enables DAV Class 2 methods in the Apache Web server. WebDAV methods while other URLs are handled by the DAV4J servlet with WebDAV methods. This allows a single Apache server to be both a production and authoring server on different partitions of the URL namespace. The DAV4J architecture encapsulates low-level repository services required to implement the WebDAV semantics into a number of simple Java interfaces. All that is required to provide WebDAV access to a repository manager is to implement these interfaces on the repository manager.