What's the preferred way to load database properties (url...) in a web app?

Question

In a simple stand alone app, I would normally use a properties file for the database url, username, and password instead of hardcoding the values. But I am not so sure about web apps. I don't even know where I put a properites file for a servlet to see. Is there a section in the deployment descriptor (web.xml) for me to define such properties?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
By the way, I am using the Tomcat version that came with the jwsdp-1.3.

Answer 1

Don't now if it's the recommended way, but we're doing this with the context-param elements of the web.xml file.
Example :
<web-app>
<display-name>MyWebApp</display-name>
<description>
A sample Web Application
</description>
<context-param>
<param-name>driver</param-name>
<param-value>org.postgresql.Driver</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>url</param-name>
<param-value>jdbc:postgresql://mydbhost/mydbname</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>user</param-name>
<param-value>dummy</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>password</param-name>
<param-value>garbled</param-value>
</context-param>
<session-config>
<session-timeout>60</session-timeout>
</session-config>
</web-app>
In our Web application, we read those values in the following way :
public class MySVCImpl implements ServiceLifecycle, MySVCIF {
public void init(Object context) {
ServletEndpointContext seContext = (ServletEndpointContext) context;
ServletContext sContext = seContext.getServletContext();
String driver=sContext.getInitParameter("driver");
String url=sContext.getInitParameter("url");
String user=sContext.getInitParameter("user"),
String password=sContext.getInitParameter("password"),
Hope this helps.
Mark