All,
 I've  been doing exclusively non-web java work for the past 4 years or so
(i.e. backend console-type apps) and now am getting back into the web side.
To work back into it, I pulled out a site i wrote back in 2002 on Tomcat
4.x. It runs fine on Tomcat 5.5, but Eclipse is giving me this error:
"getServletContext() not found". Now, this is with the tomcat 55 runtime in
the build path.

here's a typical line of code it throws on:

HashMap hm =
Queries.addBaby_Milestone(milestone,getServletContext().getInitParameter("dsn"),request);

please pardon the bad coding... i was brand new at this back then

Eclipse is saying Severity "The method getServletContext() is undefined for
the type __2F_BabyPagesOrig_2F_guestbook_2F_guestbookProcess_2E_jsp
BabyPagesOrig/guestbook guestbookProcess.jsp

Now, if i remember correctly, what I was doing was using web.xml to store
init params like the datasource name ("dsn" above) and using them in an
"application"-scoped manner.

My question, really, is this: what's now the preferred method of A) working
with application-level variables and also B) accessing databases in a
configurable way? I'm not so much worried about eclipse yelling at me b/c i
figure the reason is probably that I'm doing something stupid, even if it
does run.

Thanks for any tips getting me up to speed again.

Marc E.