Logging to log4j log file from webservice server app using Axis2 and Netbeans 7

Question

I'm new to webservice development. I'm using Netbeans 7.0 with the Axis2 plugin and Tomcat 7.

I have a server application that is just a bunch of web methods with no UI or anything, and I created it pretty much following the tutorial at http://netbeans.org/kb/69/websvc/gs-axis.html . I use the Axis2 plugin to deploy to Tomcat.

So when I created my server application, there is no main method or anything. Typically if I want to log to a log4j log file, I'd put something like this in my main method to define where the config file for log4j resides...

PropertyConfigurator.configure("./conf/log4j.properties");

I do this on the webservice client and it works just fine, but of course that has a main method. So where would I put it in a webservice server application that has no main method? I know it doesn't have to be in the main method, but it has to be in some block of code that I know will execute, and I can't really guarantee which of my web methods will be executed first, so I can't really just stick it in one of my web methods.

I did check out other posts on StackOverflow, but didn't really find any that describe what to do in this scenario.

Anyone know the right way to do this?

Answer 1

I would use a ContextListener :

http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/Java/0400__Servlet/SetServletContextListenerinwebXML.htm