Return to Answer

Additional sources (as if the above was not enough :-)):

• Spring Framework Reference Documentation
• Spring MVC Context Loading

Also see these answers:

• Difference between applicationContext.xml and spring-servlet.xml in Spring
• What is the difference between ApplicationContext and WebApplicationContext in Spring MVC?
• Spring-MVC: What are a “context” and “namespace”?

Additional resources (as if the above was not enough :-)):

• Spring Framework Reference Documentation
• Difference between applicationContext.xml and spring-servlet.xml in Spring
• What is the difference between ApplicationContext and WebApplicationContext in Spring MVC?
• Spring-MVC: What are a “context” and “namespace”?

This is the excerpt from the FrameworkServlet source code:
FrameworkServlet.java

As for the overriding the default namespace there are some important moments. When you set a new namespace, don't prepend it with /WEB-INF and don't append .xml to it. The reason for that can be discovered if we look in the source file for the XmlWebApplicationContext class:
XmlWebApplicationContext.java

This is the excerpt from the FrameworkServlet source code:
FrameworkServlet.java

As for the overriding the default namespace there are some important moments. When you set a new namespace, don't prepend it with /WEB-INF and don't append .xml to it. The reason for that can be discovered if we look in the source file for the XmlWebApplicationContext class:
XmlWebApplicationContext.java

NOTE:
The root context is optional. Also see this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/7451389/814702

• Difference between applicationContext.xml and spring-servlet.xml in Spring
• What is the difference between ApplicationContext and WebApplicationContext in Spring MVC?
• Spring-MVC: What are a “context” and “namespace”?

NOTE:
The root context is optional. Also see this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/7451389/814702

• Difference between applicationContext.xml and spring-servlet.xml in Spring
• What is the difference between ApplicationContext and WebApplicationContext in Spring MVC?
• Spring-MVC: What are a “context” and “namespace”?