Re: Living without a Context - deploying an application using manager app

[Jacob Kjome <ho...@visi.com>]

At 11:38 AM 3/29/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi Jacob,
>
>1.) 1.000 thanks - this was the answer I needed.
>Do you know where this is to be found in the docs??? I spent quite some
>time with searching this forum and the internet, but didn't find any
>recommendation like that you just gave me.

Not positive where it is in the docs, but you might check under the Host, 
Context, or deployment documentation.  I believe it is there, I just don't 
remember where.

>2.) I see
>context.getAttribute("javax.servlet.context.tempdir")
>returns the directory the application is living at.

No, you misunderstand.  the tempdir is *not* the directory that the 
application is living at.  It works out to something like...

CATALINA_HOME/work/Standalone/localhost/myapp
CATALINA_HOME/work/Standalone/[your virtual host]/[your application context 
name]

this is very specifically *not* where WEB-INF directory is.  If you see one 
there, it is only because Tomcat is caching information.  It is not the 
context's home.

>Is it ok to access the file system using
>=========
>String mydir =
>(String)context.getAttribute("javax.servlet.context.tempdir");
>FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(mydir +
>"/WEB-INF/myconfig.txt");
>========= ?
>or is it more preferable to use
>=========
>Class myclass = this;
>FileInputStream fin =
>(FileInputStream)myclass.getResourceAsStream("WEB-INF/myconfig.txt");
>========= ?
>
>pls give me a hint which type of access is more portable?
>Do you also know a howto how to create portable web-applications?

Well, the first case is completely incorrect.  If your config file happens 
to be there because Tomcat is doing some sort of caching or something in 
the app's tempdir, consider it a happy accident.  The second case won't 
work because you are using the classloader to find the resource and 
"WEB-INF" is not a directory that is in the classpath (although 
WEB-INF/classes is and so are jars within WEB-INF/lib).  Here is how you 
would do it...

InputStream is = 
getServletContext().getResourceAsStream("/WEB-INF/myconfig.txt");

using the ServletContext, you can find resources anywhere inside your 
webapp whether the app is being deployed from a directory or directly from 
a .war file.

Jake

>thx a lot
>Johannes
>
>
>
>
>
>Jacob Kjome <ho...@visi.com>
>28.03.2003 20:27
>Please respond to
>"Tomcat Users List" <to...@jakarta.apache.org>
>
>
>To
>"Tomcat Users List" <to...@jakarta.apache.org>
>cc
>
>Subject
>Re: Living without a Context - deploying an application using  manager app
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>What do you mean "Living without a Context"?
>
>Do you mean "living without a Tomcat <Context ...> entry"?
>
>All you have to do is add META-INF/context.xml (the name "context.xml" is
>important so don't name it something else) to your .war file.  context.xml
>
>is the context configuration file for the context and contains a single
><Context ...> element and any nested elements that the <Context ...>
>element supports.
>
>A sample context.xml might look like...
>
><Context path="/arbitraypath" docBase="dbadmin.war"/>
>
>Note that the "path" can be anything you want, but the docBase must be the
>
>name of the .war file.
>
>I also saw your other message where you said....
>
><quote>
>additionaly, an application deployed using the manager app currently
>returns null if you use servletcontext.getRealPath();
>so it's context seems to be quite obfuscated...
></quote>
>
>This is to be expected.  When you deploy your app as a .war file and not a
>
>directory structure, you have no file system access.  If you are counting
>of having File IO access to within your webapp, you are creating a
>non-portable application.  The servlet spec does not guarantee any direct
>file system access to any resource on the server other than the directory
>path returned by context.getAttribute("javax.servlet.context.tempdir").
>
>there you go.
>
>Jake
>
>At 07:46 PM 3/28/2003 +0100, you wrote:
> >hi there,
> >
> >here are my findings after some experimentation with the ant deploy task
> >of the manager app.
> >
> >*) a complete application can be easily built into a WAR file using ant
> >*) this WAR file can be easily deployed using ant deploy task
> >*) once deployed onto the server, the application is running with the
> >docbase located somewhere under the manager directory:
> >ant list
> >-> produces:
> >"/dbadmin:running:1:F:\tomcat-4.1.18\work\Standalone\localhost\manager\db 
> admin.war"
> >
> >*) there the application is living
> >- without a context
> >- thus, also without any JNDI resources etc. defined in server.xml for a
> >context dbadmin with docbase dbadmin.
> >
> >Would renaming the docbase to "
> >F:\tomcat-4.1.18\work\Standalone\localhost\manager\dbadmin.war" resolve
> >the problem of not having any context?
> >What else could be done to get a context for the webapplication
>"dbadmin"?
> >
> >thx
> >Johannes