I have a customer who wants the ability to modify the .properties files packaged in the web applications WAR file so that they have the control to modify environments at settings. They will be hosting this site on their own servers so I can't say I blame them but I am a little unsure what the best course is.
I would think that any adminstrator of a Java EE application server should know how to drill into the WAR package with a zip tool and find and modify the properties files themselves. I am unsure if this is common knowledge or not.
I have typically always packaged my build artifacts with the property files appropriate for a given environment, but this is kind of an oddball case where WE build the WAR and hand it off to the customer. I might try to keep the property files external from the WAR but then it gets messy because of classloader issues (JBoss classloader, Tomcat classloader, etc…)
I am thinking that as a convenience we maintain properties files for THEIR environments and change and build these on their requests. My manager likes this idea because it keeps us in control but the customer doesn't like this.
What would you do?
Best Answer
Q: What can the properties change?
I'd argue that the customer should be able to change the properties when they want to, they're paying for the flexibility after all right?
In a running WAR
Changing a properties file inside a running WAR file is potentially bad juju as some web containers might see that as a redeploy of the entire WAR file (and we all know that hot deploys of WAR files can cause memory leaks and other unknown issues).
On the CLASSPATH
Setting up your web application to read a properties file from a common location shouldn't be too difficult (especially if you go for the properties file in the same directory as the WAR file approach)
Exploded/working directory
Most web/app servers have an exploded or working area where the current running version of the app is doing its thing. It might be possible to change the property in that version of the properties file. I'm not saying this is the nice way to do things, but you could
How about building a UI?
It sounds like these properties could be business or admin functions. So build em a pretty UI to deal with this, no hand editing of properties files! You might even move away from storing this config in a properties file altogether....
HTH!