Attaching File Monitor Thread to Tomcat

[Tyn T. Ong]

Hi all,

I'm trying to develop a Thread (I call it Monitor) which monitors a folder 
for FTP uploaded files (arbitrary upload interval) and parse them to DBMS.
I would like to start and stop that Monitor Thread with tomcat so I loaded 
from a (load-on-startup) servlet. It loads OK and works fine but when 
Tomcat shuts down, it doesn't wait for my Thread to cleanup.

I tried in Servlet destroy method...
        Monitor.stopNow(); // my thread polite stop method
        while(Monitor.isAlive()); // wait until thread's while loop exists
        in servlet destroy method but tomcat forcefully unload before 
Monitor thread can clean up.

I also tried overriding  finalize()  method but it was never called :-(

Any ideas??

Thanx,
Tyn
PS: It would be great if tomcat has standard API to attach/control other 
Java Server/Daemon process. If developers reading this, please consider my 
request.