Best practice for property file

Question

I am trying one small code which uses values from property file.
public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
  throws ServletException, java.io.IOException
      InputStream inputStream = servletContext.getResourceAsStream(/WEB-INF/test.properties);
      PrintWriter out         = response.getWriter();
       Properties prop = new Properties();
       prop.load(inputStream);
       inputStream.close();
      String nameprop = prop.getProperty("name");
      out.println(nameprop);
   }I am getting the value from property file, It's perfectly ok as far as test code is concerned. Above will open the inputStream for each thread, which is not needed so i modified it and put in inside init() method. That is also working, i believe this will give me some better performance.
But can i extend it further? I load property file at application level and all my servlets make use of it?
What is normal practice to read property file to get good performance? I serached forum, i found some info there but could not figure out exactly how people are doing it.
Thanks in advance,
regards
Manisha

Answer 1

Thanks to all posters,
As mentioned by duffymo, I tried some code which i tested on my m/c and working fine. But just want to confirm, what i understood and wrote is correct.
I wrote 1st servlet to get the property file and store into servlet context, 2nd servlet is just to test it.
1st Servlet:
package common;
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.util.*;
public class TestPropertyfiles_1 extends HttpServlet
public void init(ServletConfig config) throws ServletException
   super.init(config);
   try{
        String PF_PATH = "/WEB-INF/test.properties";
        Properties prop = new Properties();
                        InputStream inputStream = config.getServletContext().getResourceAsStream(PF_PATH);
       prop.load(inputStream);
       inputStream.close();
       getServletContext().setAttribute("pf", prop);
   }catch(Exception e){}
public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
  throws ServletException, java.io.IOException
        PrintWriter out         = response.getWriter();
        Properties tmpprop = (Properties) getServletContext().getAttribute("pf");
        String nameprop = tmpprop.getProperty("name");     
            out.println("name from property file" + nameprop);     
}2nd servlet:
package common;
import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.util.*;
public class TestPropertyfiles_2 extends HttpServlet
     public void init(ServletConfig config) throws ServletException
        super.init(config);
public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
  throws ServletException, java.io.IOException
        PrintWriter out         = response.getWriter();
        Properties tmpprop = (Properties) getServletContext().getAttribute("pf");
        String nameprop = tmpprop.getProperty("name");
                        out.println("name from property file - no 2" + nameprop);
}This was initially giving problem if I access 2nd servlet first before accessing 1st servlet. I did some changes inside web.xml
<servlet>
<servlet-name>common.TestPropertyfiles_1</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>common.TestPropertyfiles_1</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
And then all was ok.
One thing came to my mind. I can have one common servlet just for all initialisation, this will not have any doGet/doPost.
regards
Manisha