Loading initialization parameters

Question

I am trying to load parameters from web.xml in the init() method. But, in vain.
What's wrong with the following code?
package test;
public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet{
     public void init(ServletConfig config) throws ServletException {
          super.init(config);
          String param1 = config.getInitParameter("param1");
          //For test,
          System.out.println(param1); //wrongly shows null.
     }web.xml contains:
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>TestServlet</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>test.TestServlet</servlet-class>
        <init-param>
          <param-name>param1</param-name>
          <param-value>test string</param-value>
        </init-param>
    </servlet>I access the servlet as http://localhost/servlet/test.TestServlet.
The servlet works fine, except for the parameters read from web.xml.
I am not using any <servlet-mapping> element in web.xml because am testing from ROOT.
Someone please guide me. Thanks.

Answer 1

I am still stuck with this.
Can't read init. parameters. What am I missing here?
One book says this : "You never use default URLs of the form http://..../servlet/ServletName when using init parameters". I don't get why it is so. Is this a recommendation for deployment scenario, or is it just plain illegal to try to use init parameters with the default URL? I am using the default URL because that's easy for me in the learning phase.
Thank you.