dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

2009/3/31 Lars Helge Øverland <larshelge@xxxxxxxxx>:
>
>>
>> > Sorry obviously that won't be enough. DHIS 2 looks for config file in
>> > this
>> > order: 1) default properties file in dhis-support-hibernate 2) Classpath
>> > in
>> > the WAR 3) DHIS2_HOME env variable, where the last one gets precedence.
>> > We
>> > could read in a hibernate.properties file and overwrite a file on the
>> > classpath inside the WAR. But that won't be extremely elegant.
>> > Alternatively
>> > we could modify DHIS 2 to look for a system property dhis2.home and use
>> > the
>> > get/setProperty methods.
>> >
>>
>> I think a system property (eg dhis2.home) is an excellent idea - much
>> prefer them to environment variables.  It might also provide some
>> flexibility for those who are deploying multiple dhis2 applications on
>> a single server machine as we saw in India. I'm pretty sure we could
>> then put the properties file in the jar though it seems reasonable to
>> have the configurable bits outside and easily editable. Though a mixed
>> blessing I know ...
>
> OK. I think we need to keep the environment variable in addition since
>
> - system properties are Java-specific and I guess the only way to set it
> outside Java is through -D options to the java command line (?) for use with
> standard databases.
> - we would have to update all existing installations if we remove it...

You are right. I wouldn't suggest removing it at all.

>>
>> I wonder if we might make a slight improvement to startup time while
>> we're at it.  Currently it seems the DHIS hibernate sub-system looks
>> for all those locations before finally deciding to use the latter.
>> Can we do the search in the reverse order - ie if dhis2.home property
>> is set, check for hibernate.properties, use that and get straight on
>> with the rest of the busy tasks of initialisation.  On my system that
>> will shave off 2 or 3 seconds.
>>
>
> A problem with this is that it's handy to have the files overriding each
> other as the default properties contains more information than what the
> "DHIS2_HOME one" usually does, like connection pooling and caching. But we
> could say that if the DHIS2 system property is set, we could skip looking
> for the DHIS2 environment variable?
>
> System.getProperty( "user.dir" ) will give you the current working
> directory.
>
> So we have a hibernate.properties in or inline with the exe jar which looks
> up its cwr, sets a dhis2.home system property with this value, starts the
> webapp and lets dhis2 read it in...?
>
That sounds like the ticket.

Cheers
bob