Running Tomcat from a java program

Question

I'm writing a program that shall run Tomcat from the program itself. The eacy way would be to just call org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(String[]) in a new thread, but that gives only a little information to the program about the state of the server. Actually I would only know when the server is told to start (just before the main method is called), and when the server had stopped (just after the main method).
I have browsed the Catalina API documentation and source code for hours, but the only solution I have gotten, writes the standard startup text:
Starting service Tomcat-Standalone
Apache Tomcat/4.0.4
Starting service Tomcat-Apache
Apache Tomcat/4.0.4If I could get that to work, I would could add a LifecycleListener, and get all the info. I need.
The essence of the code I use is this:
CatalinaService cs = new org.apache.catalina.startup.CatalinaService();
Server s = new StandardServer();
StandardService stdService = new org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService();
s.addService(stdService);
cs.setServer(s);
cs.process(new String[]{"start"});but the following also produce a simmilar result:
BootstrapService b = new org.apache.catalina.startup.BootstrapService();
b.load(new TomcatLoader(),null);
b.start();A dirty solution would be to copy the code form Bootstrap.main(String[]) and add a few lines, but I really dosn't like that. It would be a nightmare to maintain, primiarry because I would loose the functionallity of Catalinas class loader (where a lof of classes is loaded).
Does anybody know how I can get Tomcat to run, so I still get my info. and don't use any dirty solutions?

Answer 1

Check out the main method in the source code of class org.apache.catalina.startup.Embedded
It should help you.
Also check out this article
http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2002/04/03/tomcat.html