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Get absolute path to project directory in application.properties

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.

Where does Netbeans read files from?

I'm trying to read from a text file in Netbeans. In the top level of my project directory I have foo.txt. Then in my code I have:
File file = new File("foo.txt");
It throws a FileNotFoundException, however. It's a Java web application using Spring and Tomcat, but I'm not sure if those details matter since I'm running the whole thing inside Netbeans. Basically, I just want to know where I need to put the file so Netbeans will read it.
Update - good call guys, it's looking in Tomcat's bin directory. Now this may be a stupid question but, how would I go about getting it to look in my top level project directory? I feel like dropping text files into tomcat's bin would be innapropriate.

You can try printing the absolute path of the File object to see where it is looking on the filesystem.
System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath());

I would use the following to figure out where to put the file:
System.out.println(System.getProperty("user.dir"));

To directly answer your question, If you're running an application on Tomcat, files will be opened from the current working directory. That will likely be the bin/ folder in your tomcat directory.
You can find out for sure where your program is looking by examining the result of file.getAbsolutePath().
However, for web applications, I would suggest putting files you need to read in your classpath so you don't have to depend on a certain file structure when you deploy your web application.

try System.getProperty("user.dir") to get current working directory

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">

Where will WebLogic look for files by default?

I have a web application deployed in WebLogic. In one of my java file, I tried to read PleaseNote.txt as following:
File file = new File("PleaseNote.txt");
Now WebLogic is taking PleaseNote.txt from its domain directory.My question is:
Why it is domain directory? Why not the directory where my java file which has the above line of code is in?
Is there any configuration which I am not aware of , but did unknowingly, for WebLogic to look in its domain directory?
What are the implications / side effects of using above line of code in production?
Any WeLogic experts, please respond.
Thank you
Regards
Chaitanya

Reading a file using that way makes your application less portable and not very robust: if you deploy your application on another application server, you'll have to find out where to put that PleaseNote.txt file again or the code will break.
This breaks the WORA (Write Once, Run Anywhere) principle and I'd consider this as a bad
practice.
So, I'd rather put this file in the classpath and use ClassLoader#getResourceAsStream(String name) to read it.

It is domain directory because it's corresponds to value of user.dir system variable, the place where java reads/writes files if path not explicitly set.
Why domain directory corresponds to user.dir ? Because you start Weblogic server here.
Regards
Alexander Rozhkov

when using new File(..) java looks for the file in the directory from where java.exe is started. In case of an weblogic domain, this is ofcourse the domain directory. This is default java behaviour.
When you want to load a file that is in de same directory as the class-file you are loading from, use ClassLoad.getResourcesAsStream(). If you want to load a resource from the classpath use the same method, but prefix your file with "/".

Simulate app.config for Java?

I know that you can use java.util.Properties to read Java properties files.
See: Java equivalent to app.config?
Is there a standard place to put this file? In .NET we put application.exe.config in the same directory as application.exe. The application looks for it here by default.
Java can be made to look for a properties file in the class path but I am struggling to understand the filename/path structure to use and how to use either a standard .properties format or XML format file.
Assuming I have an API packaged in org_example_api.jar (the root package is org.example.api). I don't want to put the properties file inside the jar as it should be editable by the user. I want the user to be able to put the required configuration properties in either a .properties or .xml file somewhere relative to the classpath so I can find it without needing to know anything about the ir file system structure.
Will this work on all systems:
/classpath/org_example_api.jar
/classpath/org/example/api/config.properties OR
/classpath/org/example/api/config.xml
Code:
java.util.Properties = ? //NEED SOME HELP HERE

This purely depends on the type of application you are developing.
1) If it is a web application the best place is inside the WEB-INF/classes/ folder.
2) If you are developing a standalone application there are many approaches. From your example I think the following structure will work.
/<dist>/org_example_api.jar
/<dist>/config.xml
/<dist>/run.sh
In the run.sh you can start the java application providing the current directory also in the classpath. Something like this.
java -cp .:org_example_api.jar ClassToExecute
3) If it is an API distribution it is up to the end user. You can tell the user that they can provide the config.xml in the classpath which should follow some predefined structure. You can look at Log4J as an example in this case.

The world is wide open to you here. The only best practice is what works best for you:
Whatever program the user is running can require the path to the properties file as an argument
Your application can be configured to look in the current directory for config.properties.
If the file can't be found, you could maybe fall back to the user.home directory, or fall back to wherever your application is installed.
Personally I usually have my applications attempt to read properties files from the classpath - but I'm not in a world where I have end-users update/change the file.
Whatever option you choose, just make sure you clearly document it for your users so they know which file to edit and where it needs to be!

You can put the properties file in a directory or JAR in your CLASSPATH, and then use
InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/path/goes/here");
Properties props = new Properties();
props.load(is);
(I noticed you mentioned this in your OP, but others may find the code useful.)