Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) General Discussion

hi all!!!

i'm having trouble with tomcat and velocity templates

i found on the internet this code. but no matter what i do i cannot get this to work. it never displays the correct values.

import java.io.StringWriter;
import java.io.Writer;
import java.util.Date;

import org.apache.velocity.Template;
import org.apache.velocity.VelocityContext;
import org.apache.velocity.app.Velocity;

public class VMDemo {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    Velocity.init();
    Template t = Velocity.getTemplate("./src/VMDemo.vm");

    VelocityContext ctx = new VelocityContext();

    ctx.put("aDate",new Date());
    Writer writer = new StringWriter();
    t.merge(ctx, writer);

    System.out.println(writer);
  }
}

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//File: VMDemo.vm

Day: $aDate.getDate()
Month: $aDate.getMonth()
Year: $aDate.getYear()

the only thing i can think of is that i do not put the class or .jar archive in the correct spot and it is not seen by tomcat.
i place either in WEB-INF/lib if i create a .jar archive or use only the .class file no change. in the logs i can only see that '$aDate has no value' line
and that's about it.

i wrote my own code too (along the example above)

import java.io.StringWriter;
import java.io.Writer;
import java.util.Date;

import org.apache.velocity.Template;
import org.apache.velocity.VelocityContext;
import org.apache.velocity.app.Velocity;

public class Viktor {
        private String puppet;
        public Viktor(String puppet){
                this.puppet = puppet;
        }
        public String getResult(){
                return puppet;
        }
        public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
              Velocity.init();
              Template t = Velocity.getTemplate("/opt/ConfigEngine/CSCOcnsie/Templates/device1.vm");
              VelocityContext ctx = new VelocityContext();

              //ctx.put("aDate",new Date());
              ctx.put("viktor",new Viktor("puppet"));
              Writer writer = new StringWriter();
              t.merge(ctx, writer);

                System.out.println(writer);
        }
}

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
device1.vm

#set($viktor = $viktor.getResult())
viktor is $viktor

and again no value what so ever!!! ):

basically what i'm trying to do is to get custom java code talk to templates within Cisco Configuration Engine. if anybody has any experience with it, please, let me know.
any links, tuts anything will be good!

thanks.
v..v