what is java:comp/env?

Question

what is meant by java:comp/env ?

What does the look up like :

Context envContext = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:comp/env");

do ?

I understand that a look-up like :

(DataSource)envContext.lookup("jdbc/MyDatasource")

looks up for the name MyDatasource in the context.xml or web.xml to get the URL of the database. Is it so ? !! But what does the former look up do ?

Answer 1

java:comp/env is the node in the JNDI tree where you can find properties for the current Java EE component (a webapp, or an EJB).

Context envContext = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:comp/env");

allows defining a variable pointing directly to this node. It allows doing

SomeBean s = (SomeBean) envContext.lookup("ejb/someBean");
DataSource ds = (DataSource) envContext.lookup("jdbc/dataSource");

rather than

SomeBean s = (SomeBean) initContext.lookup("java:comp/env/ejb/someBean");
DataSource ds = (DataSource) initContext.lookup("java:comp/env/jdbc/dataSource");

Relative paths instead of absolute paths. That's what it's used for.

Answer 2

It's an in-memory global hashtable where you can store global variables by name.

The "java:" url scheme causes JNDI to look for a javaURLContextFactory class, which is usually provided by your app container, e.g. here is Tomcat's implementation javadoc

See also NamingManager.getURLContext