DataSource ? : can you use outside of an appserver?

[Bob Peterson]

I'm trying to use a 3rd party component/jar, which has a javadoc that says:

This class requires a javax.sql.DataSource instance to be made available under the JNDI name "java:comp/env/jdbc/com/foo/blahblah

Is there a way to do this outside of an app server such as Tomcat? I'm trying to use it in a component that is not necessarily web-based, i.e. it could be used standalone.

Suppose I do have to use Tomcat to provide the DataSource. I'm only slightly familiar with JNDI and namespaces. So if Tomcat creates the DataSource, can I lookup the DataSource from a standalone class that is running outside of Tomcat?

[Peter den Haan]

You want simple-jndi. The documentation will tell you how to bind a Commons DBCP pooling DataSource.

- Peter

[Bob Peterson]

Thanks for the reply and links, simple-JNDI looks very interesting.

But can anyone answer my last question, about having an app server setup the DataSource and then trying to use it from outside the appserver?