Question

I have a java application project in Netbeans. I have just one class.
I try to do this

FileReader fr = new FileReader("sal.html");

I have the file sal.html under the same package. But I get this error when I run:

Errorjava.io.FileNotFoundException: sal.html (The system cannot find the file specified)

Answer 1

My guess is that Netbeans is invoking the JVM from your project’s root folder. Quoting a portion of the File Javadoc:

By default the classes in the java.io package always resolve relative pathnames against the current user directory. This directory is named by the system property user.dir, and is typically the directory in which the Java virtual machine was invoked.

To verify relative path resolution you could try:

System.out.println(System.getProperty("user.dir"));
System.out.println(new File("sal.html").getAbsolutePath());

You could then move your file to wherever java is looking for it. Most probably your project’s root folder.

You could also consider using the class loader to read files as resources inside packages using getClass().getResourceAsStream("sal.html");. This is the preferred way of accessing resources since you no longer have to worry about absolute vs. relative paths. If a resource is in your classpath, you can access it. See this answer for more.