Web.xml clarification

Question

Hello,
in a servlet we would like to read web.xml sections which are not accessible through the servlet/context-getParameter methods. So we wrote a utility to get access to these elements. The problem is, that we receive an error, if the parser has no access to the DTD defined in the DOCUMENT section of the web.xml file (which is normal in an intranet).
Error: javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder.parse(Unknown Source)
If we remove the DOCUMENT part then the parser works correctly but the application does not start and we receive
SAXParseException: Element type "web-app" must be declared.
We do not get this error even if there is no access to the Internet!!! How does the application server handle this situation?
Question: What is the usual proceeding
a) make a copy of the DTD file and store it locally?
b) is it possible to switch the validation off (I tried this and failed code below).
Any suggestions and clarifications welcome.
Regards, Rainer
----------------------- code snippet ------------------------
DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
factory.setIgnoringComments(true); //No need for comments
factory.setIgnoringElementContentWhitespace(true); //No need for WS
factory.setNamespaceAware(true); //No need for Namespaces
factory.setValidating(false); //No need for DTD ??????? DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
Document document = builder.parse( FileName );

Answer 1

You've added these to a <servlet> element right? And I'm assuming that this isnt' your servlet or you'd have seen them being used in the code.
Basically, they're initialization parameters that are passed to your servlet via the ServletConfig object and which you can access.
For example, you could define your DB URL ( though that would probably be better off as a <context-param> instead ) here, in your web.xml and then use the string in your servlet instead of hardcoding it. This way, changes would be easier.
In your case, you're adding two parameters, debug=3 and detail=3. When you use ServletConfig.getInitParameter("debug") or ServletConfig.getInitParameter("detail"), you'll get values of 3 and 3.