Question

I have an Eclipse project with the following directory structure:

MyProj
    >> src/main/java
    >> src/main/config
    >> src/test/java
    >> src/test/config

Inside src/test/config I have a properties file called app.properties full of properties that both the classes in src/main/java and src/test/java use.

All the code that I am using to look for the properties file looks like this:

try {
    Properties props = new Properties();

    props.load(new FileInputStream("app.properties"));

    someString = props.getProperty("app.title.color");
    // etc.
} catch(Exception exc) {
    // Handle exception...
}

However when I run this I am getting the following error (handled inside the catch clause above):

java.io.FileNotFoundException:
app.properties (The system cannot find the file specified)

But when I move the app.properties file to my project root (at the same level as, say, src/main/java) and re-run the code, it works great.

Obviously, this is a classpath issue. If I go to Build Path >> Configure Build Path >> Source I see that src/test/config is in fact a source folder on the build path. Which may not mean its also on the class path!!!

How can I configure Eclipse to look for src/test/config on the class path so that I can place my properties file in there but still have it available at runtime (when I run unit tests)?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The right way to do this (which will ensure your code continues to work should it ever be put into a JAR), is to add src/test/config to the classpath of your project, and to load the resources using getResourceAsStream() method of ClassLoader. e.g.

Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("app.properties")