Using external entities in JBoss configuration files

[jwillemin]

So, in order to break big xml configuration files apart, we do the exteral entity thing, like so:

http://saloon.javaranch.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=31&t=002888

For instance:

meh.xml:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE meh[ <!ENTITY meh-message SYSTEM
'file:./meh-message.xml'> ]>

&meh;


meh-message.xml:
<meh-message>MEH!</meh-message>

This seems to work fine in some JBoss files (like in /conf, login-config.xml) but if I try to do it with anything in server/default/deploy (oracle-ds.xml for instance) or inside my web application (WEB-INF/conf/whatever.xml) I get a FileNotFoundException for the included piece (meh-message.xml).

It does however, work fine if I put an absolute path (i.e. !ENTITY meh-message SYSTEM 'file:c:/meh-message.xml'). For obvious reasons this is not desirable :)

Is this a bug? It would make configuring our app so much easier if this worked.

Thanks,
John Willemin

[jwillemin]

That should be:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'>

<!DOCTYPE meh [
<!ENTITY meh-message SYSTEM 'file:./meh-message.xml'>
]>

(meh)
&meh-message;
(/meh)

[jwillemin]

Anyone?

External entities are part of the XML spec. It seems quite strange that they only work in certain cases.