How to do runtime property substitution for web.xml

1. Place ${propertyName} in you web.xml file and specify the actual value via -DpropertyName=value (see a forum entry related to this...) also known as variable substitution.
   
2. If you can afford to do this at compile time then:
   
   1. do so using a build tool such as maven (an example)
      
   2. Filter the web.xml file by configuring the maven-war-plugin as shown in the last post in this thread. There are some generic examples here too but they aren't as clear cut for the web.xml file.