getServletContext().getRealPath("") - This way will not work if content is being made available from a .war archive. getServletContext() will be null.
In this case we can use another way to get real path. This is example of getting a path to a properties file C:/Program Files/Tomcat 6/webapps/myapp/WEB-INF/classes/somefile.properties:
// URL returned "/C:/Program%20Files/Tomcat%206.0/webapps/myapp/WEB-INF/classes/"
URL r = this.getClass().getResource("/");
// path decoded "/C:/Program Files/Tomcat 6.0/webapps/myapp/WEB-INF/classes/"
String decoded = URLDecoder.decode(r.getFile(), "UTF-8");
if (decoded.startsWith("/")) {
// path "C:/Program Files/Tomcat 6.0/webapps/myapp/WEB-INF/classes/"
decoded = decoded.replaceFirst("/", "");
}
File f = new File(decoded, "somefile.properties");