Question

I need to read a properties files that’s buried in my package structure in com.al.common.email.templates.

I’ve tried everything and I can’t figure it out.

In the end, my code will be running in a servlet container, but I don’t want to depend on the container for anything. I write JUnit test cases and it needs to work in both.

Answer 1

When loading the Properties from a Class in the package com.al.common.email.templates you can use

Properties prop = new Properties(); InputStream in = getClass().getResourceAsStream('foo.properties'); prop.load(in); in.close(); 

(Add all the necessary exception handling).

If your class is not in that package, you need to aquire the InputStream slightly differently:

InputStream in =   getClass().getResourceAsStream('/com/al/common/email/templates/foo.properties'); 

Relative paths (those without a leading ‘/’) in getResource()/getResourceAsStream() mean that the resource will be searched relative to the directory which represents the package the class is in.

Using java.lang.String.class.getResource('foo.txt') would search for the (inexistent) file /java/lang/String/foo.txt on the classpath.

Using an absolute path (one that starts with ‘/’) means that the current package is ignored.