Question

This likely isn’t possible, but I thought I would ask just to be sure. I have a batch file which starts my java app using relative paths. Ie. i have:

Application\start.bat
Application\lib*.jar

My application creates a configuration file in the Application directory. My batch script uses relative paths to point to the lib directory jars. This has worked really well for me because I can move the program wherever I want and it will just run. However now I would like to be able to call the same app from command line as well not just from a shortcut which has the working directory set to Application. The problem is that I want to be able to call my application from any directory on the command line and right now this doesn’t work because the working directory will be different.

I know I can always add another parameter to my app for the working directory but then I still have to create a batch script with a hard coded path to my application. Is there any way around this in Java, for example to get the directory that my main java file is in on top of the working directory? Is there a launcher app perhaps?

I can’t bundle my app as a jar because it creates configuration files which I want to be in the same directory as the application.

Answer 1

Consider just changing current dir in start.bat:

@cd /d %~dp0
java ...

This would change it to the folder where script is located.

pushd/popd commands can also be used to preserve current dir for calling script if needed.

Alternatively getClass().getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation() can be used from java to get path to jar/classes.

There is also path-independent approach with config path system property:

java "-DconfigDir=%~dp0" ...