We are creating a framework that provides additional functionality for webapps. Our environment is a Tomcat installation, and we have created a number of shared classes that can be accessed by webapps deployed on our server via a custom API.

The shared classes use hibernate for their persistence. These shared classes are bundled as a jar and reside in the /shared/lib folder in Tomcat.

The problem is that the shared classes jar has its own hibernate.cfg.xml file that overrides any that may reside within the webapp.

The webapps we are using are produced by third parties, and we do not want to place any requirements on them with respect to usage or the way they configure their hibernate installation.

I think that I can get around this by making the hibernate settings programmatically within the shared jar and that would allow any hibernate.cfg.xml file in the webapp to work properly?

Is there a good (recommended) way to handle this scenario? Are there any potential problems with the solution I have proposed?

Brad
Chief Architect -- Penguinfire Media inc.

Look at JBossAS and its HARDeployer.
You can use AS just as web container (Tomcat).

You can probably add this jar of your's to every .har file (without .cfg.xml) and then simply configure this .har.