title: Good example of Spring Configuration using java.util.prefs or Commons Configuration
body: <p>One application I'm working on has several URLs and other information that is instance specific.  The first pass uses a typical Spring <strong>PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer</strong> with a properties file:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;bean id="propertyConfigurer" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"&gt;
      &lt;property name="location" value="classpath:application.properties"/&gt;
  &lt;/bean&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The main issue with this is of course the property file is an artifact that must be checked in, and for starting a new instance would require updating that artifact.  For a streamline deployment, I would like to have the ApplicationContext bootstrap itself based on database table(s).  I have seen solutions like <a href="http://forum.springsource.org/showthread.php?t=15583" rel="nofollow" title="Wiring bean from a database">this forum post</a>, does anyone here know of better tools or is this defacto approach to this problem?  I would also like to be able to update/reload the settings at runtime using JMX or other facilities, but having to restart the app after changes to the database would still be a better solution to the current one.</p>