<timasmith@hotmail.com> wrote...

I guess you have these properties in a special object?

Then you can simply use java.beans.XMLCoder and XMLDecoder to serialize that
object in XML.

I found a hack I made several years ago for an app, where I easily could
shift between different connections, not only Oracle and MS Access... ;-)

It's not pretty, but I don't have the time to fix it.

Hopefully you can look at it and see if it's of any use to you.

======================================

 private void saveConnections ()
 {
   try
   {
     XMLEncoder e =
       new XMLEncoder(
         new BufferedOutputStream(
           new FileOutputStream("Connections.xml")));

     Vector cbm = new Vector(connections.values());

     int antal = cbm.size();

     for (int i = 0; i < antal; i++)
     {
       ConnectionProperty c =
         (ConnectionProperty)
            cbm.get(i);
       e.writeObject(c);
     }

     e.close();
   }
   catch (FileNotFoundException fex)
   {
     fex.printStackTrace();
   }
 }

 private void loadConnections ()
 {
   java.beans.XMLDecoder d = null;

   try
   {
     d = new XMLDecoder(
         new BufferedInputStream(
           new FileInputStream("Connections.xml")));

     while (true)
     {
       ConnectionProperty ci = (ConnectionProperty) d.readObject();
       connections.put(ci.getLabel(), ci);
     }
   }
   catch (FileNotFoundException fex)
   {
     fex.printStackTrace();
   }
   catch (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException aix)
   {
     d.close();
   }
 }

======================================

And the class I used for storing the
Connection properties...

======================================

import java.io.*;

public class ConnectionProperty implements Serializable
{
 private String label;
 private String driver;
 private String jar;
 private String connectionString;

 public ConnectionProperty (String l, String d, String c, String j)
 {
   label = l;
   driver = d;
   connectionString = c;
   jar = j;
 }

 public ConnectionProperty ()
 {
   // For the "Serializability"
 }

 public String toString()
 {
   return label;
 }

 public String getDriver()
 {
   return driver;
 }

 public void setDriver(String d)
 {
   driver = d;
 }

 public String getJar()
 {
   return jar;
 }

 public void setJar(String d)
 {
   jar = d;
 }

 public String getLabel()
 {
   return label;
 }

 public void setLabel(String s)
 {
   label = s;
 }

 public String getConnectionString()
 {
   return connectionString;
 }

 public void setConnectionString(String c)
 {
   connectionString = c;
 }
}

======================================

// Bjorn A

There are many frameworks that let you map XML - Java and gets you
going...like Digester, Castor XML etc....

You can even consider storing such environment specific thingies in a
database too or different property files !

No matter what route you choose, make sure, the load of such
information happens once and remains a singleton since that time

--
Arvind

Do more research on DOM and/or SAX XML parsers.
They are existed for many years, they are standard.

Go to the link below click
Xalan and/or Xerces
I think O'Reilly book(s) Java XML will teach you how to use these
DOM/SAX XML parsers

 http://xml.apache.org/