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Spring not looking in the Config subfolder

I am new to Springboot and I am having trouble with externalizing my properties files.
I have multiple ".properties" files that I have kept in a subdirectory "config/". I have removed context-placeholders from my project and have included the comma-separated properties files while executing the jar.
eg. java -jar myjar.jar --spring.config.location=file:////config/PROP1.properties, file:///config/PROP2.properties -debug
I have few questions
Why are the files in the config directory not being read even after explicitly mentioning where to look?
I have my own dependencies in the project that have same-named properties files packed in its jar. Is that creating any sort of problem when SpringBoot tries to read the files from the config folder while executing my project jar?
Update
Now I am keeping only a single properties file suppose ABC.properties outside the jar in the same directory . I am using the name "ABC" instead of "application". I am using the below command
java -Dserver.log.dir=/path/to/log/dir -jar myjar.jar --server.port=9090 --spring.config.name=ABC --prop1=val1
I have overriden a property in my external property file but I don't see the overriden value being used when I run the application. My new questions are
Is there anything wrong with the command-line?
I have the following line in xml bean configuration
<context:property-placeholder location="ABC.properties" />. Is this causing any sort of problems to detect and use the external properties?
If the above is true and I have to remove the line how will SpringBoot understand from where the property values are to be imported?
(Not related directly to the question) Is there a order that I need to follow while giving command line arguments?

Spring boot has explicit indicate how to write this external configuration. See doc ref here: https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/2.5.2/reference/htmlsingle/#features.external-config.files
Basically, you need to specify the location like this:
--spring.config.location=classpath:/somefolder/somefile.properties
--spring.config.location=file:./somefolder/somefile.properties
From your command line, it seems that you are missing one dash, and also using a wrong format of file schema.

Q1: Why are the files in the config directory not being read even after explicitly mentioning where to look?
A1: If your config folder is beside your jar file, your command should be like
java -jar myjar.jar --spring.config.location=file:./config/PROP1.properties
meanwhile, you can also use the full path to target your config file.
Q2: If I don't mention the properties files names explicitly as an argument then they won't be picked up even when they are in the config directory
A2: No. See this doc, Spring Boot will try to find config files from the four places:
A /config subdir of the current directory.
The current directory
A classpath /config package
The classpath root
If spring.config.location is not set, files in these folders named application.properties will be treated as valid config file. You can change the accepted file name by setting property spring.config.name.
Q3 About Config File Priority
A3 As described in the doc mentioned earlier, if same name properties appear in different config files, locations higher in the list override lower items.
Another tip, it will be better to remove config files inside the jar file, so you can get a full view of configuration just in one place (the externalized config folder);

log4j configuration file and jar application

I'm using the log4j2 library to manage the logging process.
I created a configuration file named log4j2.xml containing the Appenders and Loggers configurations. Then, I defined a Logger in each class
private static Logger my_logger = LogManager.getLogger(my_class);
I did not specify anywhere the name of the conf file, so I think that the library implicitly get and read it.
Now, I need to provide my application in the form of a jar file, so I need to make the config file available so that the user can modify and configure it.
In my case, I suggest to create a XXX folder at the level of the jar file, containing all the configuration files used by my app.
My question is how can I say to the app "get XXX/log4j2.xml" rather than the xml contained into the jar.

that config file must be located in the class path, if you want the app to read the configuration from any other location then you need to specify that using
PropertyConfigurator.configure("/myPath/log4j.properties");

Make any folder and put your property or xml file in that. In order to read the property file you can do something like this:
Properties objProperties = new Properties();
<your-class>.class.getClassLoader().getResource("folder/log4j.properties");
objProperties.load(isFile);
or, Also this:
InputStream ist = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("folder/log4j.properties");
In case of java web application please use the link

I had a similar task a few weeks ago.
I solved it this way:
Store a template of your log4j2.xml inside your jar files resource folder
When running your application, check for a file named log4j2.xml in the jar files current directory
If there is one, use that to create your logger
If not, copy your template from within your jar to the jar files directory and then use that to create your logger.
Cheers

How to load property file located inside jar file

How to load property files placed in resource folder of an executable jar file. Here my app itself is a jar and it executes on it own. It need to find this property file (placed within itself under resource folder) at runtime depending on the path mentioned in the code. I have used below two methods but it didn't help me. Point here is, both these options are working fine when i execute in eclipse, but doesn't work when I pack it into an executable jar. It throws NullPointerException. Only problem I see here is that jar is not able to pick the property files with given path. Any help would be appreciated.
Method 1: Using Apache Commons Configuration
URL propFileURL = XYZ.class.getClassLoader().getResource("/config.properties");
Configuration propertyConfiguration = null;
propertyConfiguration = new PropertiesConfiguration(propFileURL);
In above case I'm getting ConfigurationException. Class is not able to find file mentioned in given path.
Method 2: Using getResourceAsStream. I know that getResource doesn't work if we are to load files from network on in any other location.
InputStream is =XYZ.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("/config.properties");
Properties prop = new Properties();
prop.load(is);
In this case, I'm getting nullPointerException.
Let me know if you need more details.
jar content Heirarchy
Properties file - /java-file-io-application/src/main/resources/config.properties
XYZ class - /java-file-io-application/src/main/java/org/bc/xyz/iplugin/utilities/XYZ.java

Looks like you might be building your jar incorrectly. Files from 'src/main/resources' would be expected at the root of the jar file. If your jar file contains the 'src/main/resources' directory, something's off with your build.

Referencing log4j config file within executable JAR

I am creating an executable JAR that uses a couple XML config files, one for the application and one for log4j. To reference my app config file, I do this:
InputStream config = Util.class.getResourceAsStream("/config/config.xml");
This works fine for my app config, but the problem is that I can't configure log4j like this. Here is the code that configures log4j:
DOMConfigurator.configure("/config/log4j.xml");
This won't work because the XML file is going to be stored within the packaged JAR. How can I configure log4j to use an XML or properties file within the JAR?

You can use the URL version of the DOMConfigurator.configure method. The resource will have to be available at/config/log4j.xml.
DOMConfigurator.configure(Util.class.getResource("/config/log4j.xml")

You can try
DOMConfigurator.configure(Util.class.getResource("/config/log4j.xml"));

Config files - where to put them in Java?

I have a java desktop app and the issue of config files is vexing me.
What I want is for my distributable application folder to look like this:
MyApp/Application.jar
MyApp/SpringConfig.xml
MyApp/OtherConfig.xml
MyApp/lib
But at the moment SpringConfig.xml is inside Application.jar and I can't even find OtherConfig.xml programmatically.
I don't care how I set up the various files in my compilation path, so long as they end up looking like the above.
So..
where do i put the files in my dev setup?
and how do i access them programmatically?
thanks

the spring config file is related to the code and wiring of your application, hence it'd better be inside the jar, and should be subject to change by the users
(new File(".")).getAbsolutePath(); returns the absolute path of your jar - then you can load the OtherConfig.xml by a simple FileInputStream
if the SpringConfig.xml contains configuration data like database credentials, put them in an external application.properties and use a custom PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer to load the external file.
Answering the question "where do I put the files in my dev setup" is not possible because we don't know your environment.
Actually, if you want to be able to edit the config yourself (and not necessarily end-users), you can open the jar with any zip software (WinRAR for instance) and edit the config file from within the jar.
Update: as it seems you can't make the config files to be places out of the jar. Well, for a start, you can do it manually - whenever the .jar is complete, just remove the config file from inside and place it outside.

I typically create a structure where I have a src/ directory and then other directories exist at the same level. Some of those directories include:
lib/ - External Libraries
config/ - Configuration Files
resources/ - Various resources I use (images, etc)
At that same level, I then create an Ant script to perform my build so that the appropriate config files, resources, lib, etc are copied into my JAR file upon build. It has worked great for me up to this point and is a fairly easy to understand organizational structure.
Update: Accessing my config files is done, typically, by knowing their location and opening them up and reading them in the code. Because I use Ant to build, I make sure that my config files are in a location that I expect. So, for example, in a recent application I created, when I compile, my JAR file is in the top level directory (relative to the application release structure). Then, there is a "main" config file at that same level. And there is a "theme" config file that is in a themes folder.
To read the various files, I just open them up as I would any other file and read them in and go from there. It's nothing particularly fancy but it works well and it makes it easy to manually change configurations if I need to do so.

In dev mode, put them in source dir and they will be copied to your classes folder, you can then access them using classloader.
Example:
URL url = ClassLoader.getSystemResource("test.properties");
Properties p = new Properties();
p.load(new FileInputStream(new File(url.getFile())));
In Prod mode, you can make them part of your jar.