How to define variables in spring's xmls to use in log4j.properties

Make a subclass of org.springframework.web.util.Log4jConfigListenerthat expose version value as System variable (and of course you can pass the value via standard System/Java environment variable).

public class TestListener extends Log4jConfigListener{    @Override    public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent pEvent) {        String value = pEvent.getServletContext().getInitParameter("version");        String version = System.getProperty("version");        if (version == null || version.trim().length()==0) System.setProperty("version", value);        super.contextInitialized(pEvent);    }}

And fix your web.xml

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>    <web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"         xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee              http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"         version="2.5"         xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee">    <!-- Spring -->    ...    <!-- log4j -->    <listener>        <listener-class>com.TestListener</listener-class>    </listener>    <context-param>        <param-name>version</param-name>        <param-value>1.1</param-value>    </context-param>    ...

I think you can do this by declaring a context-param in web.xml and using that param name in the property file you want to put the version or whatever.

in web.xml

<context-param>    <param-name>version</param-name>    <param-value>1.1</param-value></context-param>

in property file

log4j.appender.file.File=${version}/logs/app.log

This should work with a server restart, no compilation needed.

You can also try setting a property from the xml and accessing ti from the property file.

in web.xml

<Properties>    <Property name="version">1.1</Property></properties>

in property file

log4j.appender.file.File=${version}/logs/app.log

javabot's answer about declaring a context-param to set the variable is correct, but in order to retrieve it in your properties file you will need something like https://code.google.com/p/eproperties/ ("EProperties extends the standard java.util.Properties object and syntax to include things like: variable substitution, nesting, inclusion and lists.").

You may want to look at this previous question: Reference other variables in Java properties file

Best of luck to you in finding the solution!