I have a String value in a Spring configuration file that comes to be as the result of a JNDI lookup -- it happens to be a path name:
Try using Spring EL (expression language). I would try the following (not tested):
<jee:jndi-lookup id="myAppHomeDir" jndi-name="myAppHomeDir" />
<bean id="LogPath" class="org.mystuff.initBean">
<property name="logDirectory" value="#{myAppHomeDir+'/logs'}"/>
</bean>
Not quite sure if it would work. The thing that troubles me is the cast from File (I guess) to String when concatenating. So if the previous one didn't work, I would try:
#{myAppHomeDir.canonicalPath+'/logs'}
Let us know if it works.