Adding a directory to tomcat classpath

Question

I have a folder in my C: drive as C:\app_config\java_app This folder contains some locale specific property files.

I have a java class (PrjPropertilesLocator) that loads the property files based on default locale on the startup of the web App.My web application is running inside tomcat. The problem is how should i set this directory C:\app_config\java_app in the tomcat classpath so that this becomes available to the ResourceBundle inside the PrjPropertilesLocator class. Is there a way i can set this folder specifically for a Single web app that needs it.I donot want to put the property files inside WEB-INF/classes folder.

On weblogic this runs fine.I set the directory inside the weblogic classpath in one of its startup scripts and it works fine. But on Tomcat i tried putting it in startup.bat also in setclasspath.bat, but was not able to do so successfully.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

In Tomcat 6, the CLASSPATH in your environment is ignored. In setclasspath.bat you'll see

set CLASSPATH=%JAVA_HOME%\lib\tools.jar

then in catalina.bat, it's used like so

%_EXECJAVA% %JAVA_OPTS% %CATALINA_OPTS% %DEBUG_OPTS% 
-Djava.endorsed.dirs="%JAVA_ENDORSED_DIRS%" -classpath "%CLASSPATH%" 
-Dcatalina.base="%CATALINA_BASE%" -Dcatalina.home="%CATALINA_HOME%" 
-Djava.io.tmpdir="%CATALINA_TMPDIR%" %MAINCLASS% %CMD_LINE_ARGS% %ACTION%

I don't see any other vars that are included, so I think you're stuck with editing setclasspath.bat and changing how CLASSPATH is built. For Tomcat 6.0.20, this change was on like 74 of setclasspath.bat

set CLASSPATH=C:\app_config\java_app;%JAVA_HOME%\lib\tools.jar

Answer 2

Hi,

What I suggest you do is add a META-INF directory with a MANIFEST.MF file in .war file.

Please note that according to servlet spec, it must be a .war file and not .war directory for the META-INF/MANIFEST.MF to be read by container.

Edit the MANIFEST.MF Class-Path property to C:\app_config\java_app:

See http://java.sun.com/developer/Books/javaprogramming/JAR/basics/manifest.html

Enjoy.

Answer 3

Just specify it in shared.loader or common.loader property of /conf/catalina.properties.