title: What is the purpose of javax.servlet.FilterChain?
body: <p>I inherited a Struts 1 app that heavily utilizes FilterChain and I don't understand the benefit of this extremely obfuscating code.</p>
  
  <p>"In the Servlet API, you normally use a Servlet when you want to control, preprocess and/or postprocess specific requests. But when you want to filter/modify common requests and/or responses based on specific conditions, then a Filter is much more suitable."</p>
  
  <p>Every request in my app is based on specific conditions, e.g., a merchant id or a search term. But it seems like placing a request inside a whole chain of stuff that completely hides what is going on from the developer trying to trace the cause of an error, is nuts.</p>