Lost of Parameter file in web application

Question

Hi,
We develop a java (1.5) application running on Tomcat (5.5 and 6.0).
In this application, we use a parameter file in YAML format.
Everything works perfectly except when the tomcat server is restarted.
At this point, the application is no more able to reach the parameter file.
We have to re-deploy the whole application to be able to use the parameter file.
But we lost it again when the server is restarted.
We don't know if the problem is coming from our tomcat configuration or from our java code.
The problem is seen on Tomcat 5.5, 6.0 and on Linux and Mac OS X.
So, it must come from our code.
Do you have an idea ?
Thanks
Here is the code where the parameter file is read:
final private String YAMLpath = "truc" + File.separator + "META-INF" + File.separator + "Parameters.yaml";
try
               Scanner openYAML55 = new Scanner(new File(this.YAMLpath) ); //For Tomcat5.5
               this.readParameterFile(openYAML55);
               openYAML55.close();
          catch(FileNotFoundException f)
               f.printStackTrace();
private void readParameterFile(Scanner paramFile)
     while(paramFile.hasNextLine())
               Pattern paramLine = Pattern.compile("(\\w+)\\s*:\\s*(.*)");
               Matcher paramArg = paramLine.matcher(paramFile.nextLine());
               if ( paramArg.matches() )
if ( paramArg.group(1).trim().equals("dbase") )
                         this.dbase = paramArg.group(2).replaceAll("\"", "").trim();
                    else if ( paramArg.group(1).trim().equals("dbport") )
                         this.dbport = Integer.parseInt( paramArg.group(2).replaceAll("\"", "").trim() );
                    else if ( paramArg.group(1).trim().equals("dbhost") )
                         this.dbhost = paramArg.group(2).replaceAll("\"", "").trim();
          this.bgeeRoot = this.serverRoot + this.bgeeRoot;
          this.homePage = this.serverRoot + this.homePage;
}

Answer 1

How about simply loading the file or obtaining its input stream as a resource using ClassLoader.getResource[AsStream]? Direct file access to parts of a web app... my oh my.