23 down vote

For a start,  ServletRequest.getRealPath(String path)  is deprecated. The appropriate replacement is:

ServletContext context = session.getServletContext();

String realContextPath = context.getRealPath(request.getContextPath());

However, the API docs for  ServletContext.getRealPath(String path)  state:

"This method returns  null  if the servlet container cannot translate the virtual path to a real path for any reason (such as when the content is being made available from a .war archive)."

So the API is fulfilling its contract! However, all is not lost, as you can load a resource from the WAR using the following method, as defined in  ServletContext :

ServletContext context = session.getServletContext();

InputStream is = context.getResourceAsStream( "generate.xml" );