access properties file from servlet

[Peter Straw]

Hi,
What is the best way to determine the path for a properties file from within a servlet please? At the moment I have the path hard-coded inside a loadProps() method with the tomcat\bin as the 'root' like this:
input=new FileInputStream( "../webapps/myWebapp/properties/props" );
but it would be nice if the webapp could work out the relative path of its own context so that it would still work even if the webapp is re-named.
Many thanks,
[ September 18, 2003: Message edited by: Peter Straw ]

[Evaristo Ballorca]

If we want get the real path where the web application is located we could ask to the servlet context:
servletContext.getRealPath( "/" );
This method will return a real path for a relative path. If we are in a web application context is /webapp_example, this method will return:
c:/tomcat4/webapps/webapp_example/
Then if you want to acces to the WEB-INF directory you will write:
servletContext.getRealPath( "/" ) + "WEB-INF/";
If you are in a servlet you could get the servlet context doing:
request.getSession().getServletContext()
I wait that i help you.
See you

[Jason Davies]

I would recommend using ServletContext.getResource() or ServletContext.getResourceAsStream().
This allows you to read data from a .war file as well, and will work wherever the webapp is deployed.

[Peter Straw]

great! thanks very much both of you that works perfectly.