Spring MVC Get file under WEB-INF without a request

Question

I am trying to get hold of a file ( or a directory ) under /WEB-INF/.../

outside of a request. I need it in a bean loaded at server startup.

A

Answer 1

Not completely related to your question, but... Here is some universal sulution i used to load properties from anywhere in web application like Spring does it (supporting WEB-INF/..., classpath:..., file:...). Is is based on using ServletContextResourcePatternResolver. You will need ServletContext.

private static Properties loadPropsTheSpringWay(ServletContext ctx, String propsPath) throws IOException {
    PropertiesFactoryBean springProps = new PropertiesFactoryBean();
    ResourcePatternResolver resolver = new ServletContextResourcePatternResolver(ctx);
    springProps.setLocation(resolver.getResource(propsPath));
    springProps.afterPropertiesSet();
    return springProps.getObject();
}

I used the above method in my custom servlet context listener while conext was not yet loaded.