Creating environment independent web applications

Introduction

Software development generally has production environments and test environments that each are used for what they are meant for. Most times the test environment and the production environment are using different resources. While the JavaEE specification makes it easy to setup different environments for databases it is a bit harder if you have other resources that are different between environments. This article describes how you can use the Glassfish JDNI tree and a small JAR file available to the application server to store environment settings.

Requirements

• Manorrock Glassfish JNDI extensions library
• Glassfish 1.x+

Setup

Put the Manorrock Glassfish JNDI extensions library in $GLASSFISH_ROOT/lib.

Create a Custom JNDI resource with the following details:

  JNDI name     :  myapplication/mykey
  Resource Type :  java.lang.String
  Factory Class :  com.manorrock.glassfish.jndi.JndiStringFactory
                

And make sure you also add the following property:

  Name  : value
  Value : myvalue
                

The following code snippet shows you how you can access this inside your application or JSP page:

  String value = "";
  try {
    InitialContext context = new InitialContext();
    value = (String) context.lookup("myapplication/mykey");
  }
  catch(NameNotFoundException exception) {}
                

The code snippet will store the value "myvalue" in the variable value.

You now have the ability to create web applications that are identical between environments. Please send comments, suggestions and any feedback to sales@manorrock.com.

If you like this little library please go to the Manorrock Glassfish extensions page for more details.

(Glassfish 9.0+)

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