title: Location of ApplicationContext.xml and properties file in spring
body: <p>In my application I have placed the <code>ApplicationContext xml</code> file in src and the project is working fine.<br>
  Can we place the <code>ApplicationContext.xml</code> in our WebContent or Web-Inf folder?  </p>
  
  <p>Also I want to know if I can place my properties file in WebContent.  </p>
  
  <p>Since I have placed my <code>ApplicationContext.xml</code> in <code>src</code>, I placed my properties file in src and that worked fine. Below is the code for it  </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;bean id="licenseSettings"
      class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"&gt;
      &lt;property name="location" value="classpath:LicenseSettings.properties" /&gt;
  &lt;/bean&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I tried putting the properties file in <code>WebContent/conf</code> but the properties were not read succesfully. </p>
  
  <p>My question is, can we put ApplicationContext.xml and properties file somewhere inside WebContent folder?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong>: I put my ApplicationContext.xml in <code>WEB-INF/classes</code> and it was read successfully using <code>ApplicationContext ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("ApplicationContext.xml");</code></p>
  
  <p>My only question remaining unanswered is, where shall I put my properties file and where is it appropriate to be put in?</p>