title: Best practices for defining and initializing variables in web.xml and then accessing them from Java code
body: <p>I would like to define and initialize some variables in web.xml and the access the values of these variables inside my Java application.  </p>
  
  <p>The reason I want to do this is because I would like to be able to change the values of these variables without having to recompile the code.</p>
  
  <p>What is the best practice for doing this?  Most of the variables are just strings, maybe some numbers as well.  Does the class that accesses the variables have to be a servlet?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>
  
  <p>Chris</p>