Re: Properties Files vs. War/Ear files

["David Morris" <David.Morris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Walden,

I load them from the classpath. The simplest way (with Tomcat) is to
put the properties files in the WEB-INF/classes directory. When I deploy
to a Web archive, I use ant to pull the appropriate configuration from
multiple versions. In some cases, I fall back to the system properties
if a specific file is not found. Here is some code to look at the
classpath:

public static final String MAILER_PROPERTIES =
"com/somecompany/config/Mailer.properties";
private static Properties properties;

static {
        // If properties file found, use it for user/password
        InputStream inputStream = Thread.currentThread()
                        
.getContextClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(MAILER_PROPERTIES);
        // Load Properties File
        if (inputStream == null) {
                properties = System.getProperties(); // Assume system
properties
        } else {
                try {
                        properties = new Properties();
                        properties.load(inputStream);
                } catch (Exception e) {
                        log.error("Error loading Mailer.properties.",
e);
                        throw new MailerRuntimeException(e);
                }
        }
}


>>> WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 11/01/05 10:01 AM >>>
All,
 
If I understand the concept correctly, one should put their
"softcoded"
things into a properties file. This could be connection strings (if
you're not using WebSphere data sources), Web Services addresses, URLs
you access that are different between test and production, etc.
 
Now, the properties file is "wrapped" into the WAR file that's
deployed
to websphere. So, once deployed you go into the properties file and
make
your changes? Am I good so far? If so, what's the process for
deploying
updates? If I re-deploy the WAR file then I'll overwrite the
properties
file, so I have to make my changes again? 
 
Is there a way to exclude the properties file from the WAR and have WS
leave it on the server?
 
-Walden