container role in environment entry settings?

[yamini nadella]

The container is responsible for providing tools, which helps a Deployer to set or modify environment entry values.

is above statement is correct?
environment entries are defined by bean provider in ejb-jar.xml file. Assembler can set or change environment entry values.
But why container and deployer are coming in to picture. can a deployer change environment entry values?

Yamini.

[Kathy Sierra]

Howdy -- a Deployer could definitely modify environment variables--in fact, we like to think of env variables as "deploy-time constants", because they are typically things that might vary from deployment to deployment (tax rates, discounts, etc.)

The Container just has to make sure that this is available for a deployer to modify. There is a good chance that the bean provider and possibly the app assembler do not *know* the real value until deploy-time.

cheers,
Kathy