Get absolute path to project directory in application.properties - java

I am writing a Quarkus application which reads data over http. In my application.properties file, I have this line:
my.resource=http://path/to/file
Every time I run the app, it has to download the file so I created a smaller version of the file locally for developing purpose. The problem is that I don't know how to put it in the properties file.
Ideally, I want something like this:
my.resource=http://path/to/file
%dev.my.resource=file://${project-dir}/sample_data/file
And I have to use the absolute path because I used new URI(resource).toURL() method which requires an absolute URI.
Thanks in advance.

Application properties is something that is used when your application is deployed to adopt your application to the target environment, does the user of the deployed application know anything about project directory? Project directory is something that makes sense when you are developing your application. having said that using project directory in that file does not make sense at all.

Related

user.dir is incorrect while using tomcat web app in eclipse

I have a configuration project that few projects are using it.
All of my project under the same workingspace.
workingspace/configuration
workingspace/webapp1
workingspace/mongoDB
workingspace/model
mongoDB and the model project are using the configuration jar project and able to read the xml files using relative path ../configuration/conf/....xml
when using the
System.out.println("Working Directory = " +
System.getProperty("user.dir"));
inside both of them, I'm getting the correct path (workspace)
while trying to do it from the web app servlet i'm getting the folder of eclipse.exe that causing some problems.
How can i fix the user.dir defalte path for the web app?
At runtime, e.g. when you're not running from inside eclipse, you probably want to work in a defined directory as well - I'd suggest to explicitly configure a specific directory. When you're running within an appserver, you might run as an unpriviledged user that doesn't have a home directory writeable at all (when the account is properly administered with minimal permissions). This differs from applications that are launched ad hoc. In fact, you probably can't assume that your application server runs as the same user as your standalone apps do.
Another alternative is to utilize the system's temp directory - if these are truly temporary files. This could be assumed writeable, or complaints if it isn't do make sense.

How do I configure the server so that It stores the dynamically created files in the specified folder not under the bin folder?

I have developed a web application which will create an xml file based on the user Input. It has some more functionality. I configured my application to store the xml file(s) in the project root folder. When I run it through eclipse It stores in the specified location. But If I manually put the war file in apache tomcat and run the application those newly created xml files are going into bin directory since I used relative path. Now I dont want it to be created under bin directory. I want those files to be created somewhere local in the system. Is there any way to do it ? Or else what is the best way to deal with those xml files. I am using spring MVC.
You could use a variable in your code would contain the first part of the path (the real location where you want to write the file). And inject the value of that variable from a properties file, that way you wouldn't hardcode anything, and still would be able to provide only the relative path in your code.

Current directory of a web app in netbeans

I am working on a web app i have java files in it which uses certain files.I want to specify these files using relative path in java so that it doesn't produce mobility issue.But Where should i place a file in a web app so that i can use relative path.? I have tried placing the files under source package, web folder, directly under the web-application.Please help.Thanks in advance
The simplest way to get the current directory of a java application is :
System.out.println(new File(".").getAbsolutePath());
Like that you can consider the given path as the root of your application.
Cheers,
Maxime.
Read the file as a resource. Put it somewhere in the src. For instance
src/resources/myresource.txt
Then you can just do
InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/resources/myresource.txt");
Note: if you are using maven, then you are more accustomed to something like this
src/main/resources/myresource.txt
With maven, everything in the main/resources folder gets built to the root, so you would leave out the resources in your path
InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/myresource.txt");

Locating created file with Java EE and Tomcat

I have created a dynamic web project, and use Apache Tomcat as a server.
In my servlet I'm creating a text file and want to reuse that in a JSP. However they are by default created in the installation folder of Eclipse when I do something as simple as the following:
File f = new file("test.txt").
I don't know why this happens. Is there a way to create the file in the WebContent directory as I want to make that file available for download in my JSP.
Java has a concept of the "current directory". When you start an application via Eclipse, this may indeed point to your installation directory. If you don't specify any path, a file will be created in this current directory. Hence the reason why your test.txt ends up there.
The WebContent directory is a something that is specific to Eclipse. Your code should not depend on putting anything there. You only start your application via Eclipse when you're developing it, not when you're deploying it to a live server.
The content of this directory will become the root of your .war, which is a well known location independent of how you start & deploy you app, BUT you still cannot depend on writing anything to this location at run-time. You might deploy your application as a packaged .war (likely for live deployments) or you may deploy your application unpackaged but then your application server may simply not pick up any changes done at run-time.
What you can do if you are sure your application only runs on a single server is writing the files to a well known location on your file system, such as /tmp, or /var/yourapp/files, etc. The code serving up those files can then pick them up from that location.
If you want to play it 100% safe according to the Java EE rules, you'd store your files on something like an FTP server that has a configurable address. Technically your war could be shipped between nodes on a cluster and requests could end up going to different machines, so depending on a local filesystem wouldn't work then.
Executing this statement this.getServletContext().getRealPath (""), you'll obtain the path where Tomcat WebServer is pointing at at runtime. You could add a folder "MyFolder" and call this statement:
new File(this.getServletContext().getRealPath ("") + "/MyFolder/test.txt");
Anyway, the default path looks something like:
...\workspace\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.wst.server.core\tmp0\wtpwebapps\<NameOfYourProject>
Note that when you create a new file, it won't appear in your immediate workspace (check the .metadata path), unless you change the runtime location tomcat should point at.

Java: Accessing properties file inside a war

I already searched StackOverflow for "properties inside war", but none of the results worked for my case.
I am using Eclipse Galileo and GlassFish v3 to develop a set of web services. I am using a "dynamic web project" with the following structure
Src
-java_code_pkg_1
-java_code_pkg_2
-com.company.config
--configfile.properties WebContent
-META-INF
-WEB-INF
--log4jProperties
--web.xml
--applicationContext.xml
--app-servlet.xml
I want to access the "configfile.properties" inside one of the source files in "java_code_pkg1". I am using the Spring Framework and this file will be instantiated once the application starts on the server.
I have tried the following with no luck
getResourceAsStream("/com.company.config/configfile.properties");
getResourceAsStream("/com/company/config/configfile.properties");
getResourceAsStream("com/company/config/configfile.properties");
getResourceAsStream("/configfile.properties");
getResourceAsStream("configfile.properties");
getResourceBundle(..) didn't work either.
Is it possible to access a file when it's not under the WEB-INF/classes path? if so then how?
Properties props = new Properties();
props.load(this.getClass().getResourceAsStream("/com/company/config/file.properties"));
works when I'm in debug mode. I can see the values in the debugger, but I get a NullPointerException right after executing the "props.load" line and before going into the light below it.
That's a different issue. At least now I know this is the way to access the config file.
Thank you for your help.
If you are in a war, your classpath "current directory" is "WEB-INF/classes". Simply go up two levels.
getResourceAsStream("../../com/company/config/configfile.properties");
It is horrible but it works. At least, it works under tomcat, jboss and geronimo and It works today.
P.S. Your directory structure is not very clear. Perhaps it is:
getResourceAsStream("../../com.company.config/configfile.properties");
Check the location of the properties file in WAR file.
If it is in WEB-INF/classes directory under com/company/config directory
getResourceAsStream("com/company/config/configfile.properties") should work
or getResourceAsStream(" This should work if the config file is not under WEB-INF/classes directoy
Also try using getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream.
Are you sure the file is being included in your war file? A lot of times, the war build process will filter out non .class files.
What is the path once it is deployed to the server? It's possible to use Scanner to manually read in the resource. From a java file within a package, creating a new File("../applications/") will get you a file pointed at {glassfish install}\domains\{domain name}\applications. Maybe you could alter that file path to direct you to where you need to go?
Since you are using Spring, then use the Resource support in Spring to inject the properties files directly.
see http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.0.x/reference/resources.html
Even if the class that requires the properties file is not Spring managed, you can still get access to the ApplicationContext and use it to load the resource
resource would be something like, classpath:settings.properties, presuming that your properties file got picked up by your build and dropped in the war file.
You can also inject directly, from the docs:
<property name="template" value="classpath:some/resource/path/myTemplate.txt">

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