This is related to the question How do i get servlet instance from web.xml in my java class
Folks were not clear as to what is the usecase for this type of question. I have the same question and wanted to give a usecase.
In my application i have a class called Configuration which extends HttpServlet. In my web.xml i have an load-on-startup servlet defined for Configuration. This class reads all the properties necessary for the application, and it is absolutely necessary that this properties are read during startup because there something which i am doing differently for each instance of my webserver based on the properties. Now i need to get a handle of this instance in my spring controllers so that i can get the values of the properties. How do i do it?