Loading a ServletContext resource that is inside a JAR that is inside my WAR

[Martijn Verburg]

Hi all,

I'm trying to get the right syntax for my web.xml file to reference a file that is inside my JAR file which in turn is inside the WEB-INF/lib directory of my WAR file. e.g.

Structure

/WEB-INF
    /lib
        /foobar.jar
                required-file.xml

Attempt 1 web.xml

    <context-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>
            /WEB-INF/lib/foobar.jar/required-file.xml
        </param-value>
    </context-param>

Attempt 2 web.xml

    <context-param>
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
        <param-value>
            /WEB-INF/lib/foobar.jar#required-file.xml
        </param-value>
    </context-param>

When tomcat loads the WAR file both attempts fail, e.g.

12:16:22,287 ERROR [ContextLoader] Context initialization failed
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: IOException parsing XML document from ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/lib/foobar.jar#required-file.xml]; nested exception is java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not open ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/lib/foobar.jar#required-file.xml]

Any ideas where I'm going wrong? Is this even possible?

[David Newton]

I wasn't even aware something like this was possible; is there a documentation reference you could provide? You could *try* using a classpath:etc. style reference, but I think that depends on the parameter consumer knowing how to handle that--although I'm not really sure how that functionality is implemented, if it's generic to Java or just a Spring thing, and so on :/

[Martijn Verburg]

Hi David,

There's no documentation that I've been able to find unfortunately . If I have the resource outside of the JAR I can reference it just fine e.g.

/WEB-INF  
    /classes
        required-file.xml

<context-param>  
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>  
        <param-value>  
            /WEB-INF/classes/required-file.xml  
        </param-value>  
    </context-param>  

But I'd rather keep the configuration in the JAR file (so I can use it in my integration tests without firing up a web-container).

[David Newton]

Is this a Spring config file? If so, use their classpath syntax. If *you* are loading the file, how are you doing so?

[Martijn Verburg]

Sorry, should've been clearer, it's the standard web.xml file.

[David Newton]

No, is the file you're loading a Spring config file, because "contextConfigLocation" is a Spring configuration parameter.

[Martijn Verburg]

A yes sorry you're completely right.

So I've now also tried:

 <context-param>  
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>  
        <param-value>  
            classpath:WEB-INF/lib/foobar.jar/required-file.xml  
        </param-value>  
 </context-param>

and

 <context-param>  
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>  
        <param-value>  
            classpath:WEB-INF/lib/foobar.jar#required-file.xml  
        </param-value>  
 </context-param>

 <context-param>  
        <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>  
        <param-value>  
            classpath:WEB-INF/lib/foobar.jar!required-file.xml  
        </param-value>  
 </context-param>

But I still get the same error message, I'm sure I've just got a silly typo somewhere...

Ah, no actually there's a bug in Spring fixed in 3.0.3, see:

http://slava-technical.blogspot.com/2010/06/spring-classpath-resource-resolving.html

That's a little irritating since I'm stuck on Spring 2.5.6 for now!

Thanks for your help David!!

[David Newton]

Shouldn't classpath:required-file.xml be enough? I mean, it's on the classpath, right?

[Martijn Verburg]

As far as I can tell from my experiments no , as the actual resource is inside a JAR file Spring has a bug which means that retrieval fails.

[David Newton]

Oh, okay; gotcha. Too bad!