Hi 

I am trying to run a web application which involves initialization of a
servlet with the name of a txt file (chatProps.txt) from which information
will be loaded. My problem is that I do not know where to put this txt file
in the web application directory and/or how to refer to it in the web.xml
file. The directory structure looks like this:

    tomcat
         |
    webapps
         |
      chat                     (chatProp.txt goes in here(at the moment))
         |
      Web-inf               (web.xml goes in here)
         |  ----- lib
         |
         |  ----- classes
                         |
                      chatApp (All classes go in here)

All my classes are in chatApp. The web.xml into the Web-inf directory and
I've put my chatProps.txt file into the chat directory . The chat directory
is the root directory for the web application. The servlet code to load 
this
file looks like this:

   public void init() throws ServletException{
      String propsFile = getInitParameter("chatProps");
      if (propsFile == null || propsFile.length() == 0){
         throw new UnavailableException("chatProps not set in servlet init
parameters ");
      }

      Properties props = new Properties();
      try{
         // THIS NEXT LINE THROWS THE EXCEPTION(below)
         FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream(propsFile);
         props.load(is);
         is.close();
      }catch (Exception e)

The web.xml for the web application looks like this(although recently it 
has
looked like many things):

<web-app>
 <display-name>chat</display-name>
 <servlet>
  <servlet-name>ChatAdminServlet</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>chat.ChatAdminServlet</servlet-class>
  <init-param>
   <param-name>chatProps</param-name>
   <param-value>chatProps.txt</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
 </servlet>
</web-app>

The exception I get is this:
Error: 503
Location: /chat/servlet/ChatAdminServlet
Can't read the chatProps file chatProps
java.io.FileNotFoundException: chatProps.txt (The system cannot find the
file specified)

Service is permanently unavailable

Where do I put the chatProps.txt file so the system can find it? How do I
refer to the chatProps.txt file in the web.xml file? The tag that I think 
is
giving me the problem is <param-value> I've referred to the chatProps.txt
file in this tag with an absolute address, with a localhost:8080 address
etc. and now I am out of ideas.

Any help would be very much appreciated!!!!!!!!

Tony