How to get Context paramters out of Tomcat web.xml file

Question

The Documentation at Tomcat seems to suggest:
Context initialization parameters that define shared
String constants used within your application, which
can be customized by the system administrator who is
installing your application. The values actually
assigned to these parameters can be retrieved in a
servlet or JSP page by calling:
String value =
getServletContext().getInitParameter("name");
Now I want to write a jsp, where the user enters his username and pwd, and this contacts a jdbc connection bean. I want to store the driver name in the web.xml file. Now can some1 please suggest a method as to how I can extract this (It ain't that straightforward as suggested in tomcat doumntation. You cannnot call the above method ithout Servlet Initialization (actually to say ithout HTTP Connection). I succeeded when I had written a servlet, but can some1 please suggest an alternative (bcoz othrwise just to extract that I am writing a servlet).
Hope I am clear.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Edit your web.xml file and add these entries,
<context-param>
<param-name>dbUrl</param-name>
<param-value>jdbc:oracle:thin:@server5:1521:pl2java</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>dbDriver</param-name>
<param-value>oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver</param-value>
</context-param>
Place the above entries in between your already existing <web-app> and </web-app> tags.
Now in your jsp, you can use, <% application.getInitParameter(); %> and in servlet, getServletContext().getInitParameter();
Hope this helps.
Sudha