War file deployment + configuration

[Juhan Voolaid]

Hello

I have done a simple web application, that uses a database connection and I need to make a war file and a deployment script for that app using ant.

So far I have done a simple build.xml so, that it compiles my project, creates a war file and copys it to the server and it works fine. The problem is, that in this build.xml, I don't have to edit the database connection parameters, but when I give that to the client, he needs to.

The database information is stored in META-INF/context.xml file, that must be edited.

The installations should involve steps like:
1. Specify the server deployment paht in build.xml
2. Specify the database connection parameters in build.xml (or in other file).
3. run "ant"

NOTE: The .war file must allready be in present. This ant script only installs the .war file. It does not build it.


So what are my options? I am really new to ant. Help is very welcome.

[Tim Holloway]

It sounds like you're configuring your database the hard way. The preferred method is to use a database connection pool, which your app locates via JNDI. The database connection pool is defined to your appserver. A pool is generally preferred to getting connections individually, since it usually costs a lot of resources to make a connection, but relatively little to check it in and out of a pool.

Since the database pool is defined to the appserver, you don't have to place any datase driver info or URLs in the application deployment unit (WAR).
[ June 19, 2006: Message edited by: Tim Holloway ]