Thread: xml file in JAR archive vs xml in classes folder

I just started a new position at a company and have been setting up my dev box for a couple weeks. I working on java at the college that I went to but I never worked on any big projects. The project I am currently working on uses tomcat and struts (two that I have touched base on but thats about it (am learning how they work)). So we have a lot of JAR libraries and some of them have some XML files in them that I need to edit. Well I have done this and just edited the xml files in the jar. but what if I were to create the XML files under the WEB-INF/classes dir instead of editing the WEB-INF/lib/name.jar/file.xml. So instead of editing:
WEB-INF/lib/name.jar/file.xml
could I create this file in the class dir
WEB-INF/lib/file.xml
I am guessing that this is not possible as I would think everything would be read from the xml files within the JAR file. But honestly I am not positive and thats why I am wondering.

Since I have never worked in an environment this big it can be a bit intimidating compared to my normal smaller apps I would write in school. Please let me know or if you could point me in the right direction, thanks

Yes the files will be read from the JAR file unlike your java classes which takes priority from classes folder.