Getting server name during servlet initialization

Question

I know the request object has a function to get the server name. (i.e. HttpServletRequest.getServerName() )

What if I need the same functionality inside the initiali

Answer 1

This information is request based and not strictly application based. It can namely change per request. All you have at hands during servlet initialization is the ServletContext instance which in turn offers methods like getInitParameter(). You could make use of it to access application wide settings.

So your best bet is to manually set the server name as a context parameter in web.xml

    serverName
    foo

so that you can obtain it as follows in servlet's init() method:

String serverName = getServletContext().getInitParameter("serverName");

Another (not recommended) alternative is to set it as display name in web.xml

foo

so that you can obtain it as follows:

String serverName = getServletContext().getServletContextName();