Multiple properties files: external and internal

[HatesThatWantsThis]

I have two Java applications which use Spring and are deployed onto Weblogic. One app uses Spring v 2.5.4, the other v 3.1.1.

For each application, I'd like to be able to utilise two separate property files - one in the server's filesystem and, if that does not exist for any reason, one included in the application's ear file as a set of "default" values.

Can I use the "context:property-placeholder" entry in the application's applicationContext.xml file to do this? Or, having had an investigation on the Net, could I do something like this?

<!-- Default values loaded first -->
<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:myEarPropertiesFile.properties" />
<!-- Overridden values loaded next -->
<context:property-override location="file:myExternalPropertiesFile.properties" />

Thanks for any thoughts.

[visualjeff]

You should be able to load external properties and have them override the default properties packaged with your application. I wrote a bit of code that creates a default directory structure off of the home directory for each app. Properties loaded from this external location can be used to override default properties within the app.

Jeff