Accessing classpath resources from within a jar

[general_pattonm]

Hi,
I have developed a native application (in SWT) using spring that needs to access a properties file, as follows:

  <bean id="placeholderConfig"      class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
    <property name="location"><value>/myapp.properties</value></property>
  </bean>

The "location" property expects a classpath resource, which is accessible just fine when I run the application normally (i.e., not from within a jar). I just add the directory where the properties file is stored to the classpath JVM argument.

However, when I try to package my code into a jar file, I get:

Exception in thread "main" org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanInitializati onException: Could not load properties from class path resource [myapp.properties]; nested exception is java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not open class path resource [myapp.properties]

Even though my manifest file has the directory of the properties file in its "Class-Path" entry.

When I output the system property java.class.path, I get simply my jar file. Is it possible that spring's class resource loader is not seeing past the jar file to look into the Class-Path specified in the manifest? This has been a very sticky problem and I would appreciate any help you can offer.

[robh]

Have you tried adding a leading slash to resource name, assuming that it is stored in the root of the JAR file?

Rob

[oliverhutchison]

Try this

  <bean id="placeholderConfig"      class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
    <property name="location"><value>classpath&#58;/myapp.properties</value></property>
  </bean>

Ollie

[oliverhutchison]

Actually I can see from the original exception that Spring is already using a ClassPathResource so that shouldn't help...

[Lawrence Ho]

How about using 'classpath*' instead of 'classpath'?

Lawrence

[jreyes2]

yeah, have you tried: "classpath*:myapp.properties"

[general_pattonm]

I tried the classpath* idea, to no avail. Keep in mind that the resource is a user-modifiable configuration file that needs to be stored *outside* the jar file.

So assuming the config file is stored in /usr/share/myapp/conf/myapp.properties, I would expect that I can just add either: /usr/share/myapp/conf/myapp.properties or /usr/share/myapp/conf to the Class-Path entry in the jar file's manifest and it would be able to see it.

What is so perplexing is that the file is visible to Spring when I run the program normally (no jar file), but as soon as I package it in a jar, I get these problems. Any further ideas?

[jreyes2]

ahh k... I was able to run something like that using file:/usr/share/myapp/conf/myapp.properties (not tested linux env) or in my case file:C:/usr/share/myapp/conf/myapp.properties

[general_pattonm]

Ah yes that is possible to use the "file:" prefix, but that forces the path to the file in question to be *hard-wired*. Thus the install directory for my app would be immutable because my spring file would only be able to look in one place for its properties. So I really feel forced to use the classpath approach.

[aswinnair]

Try this

<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
		<property name="location" ref="propertyResource"></property>
	</bean>

<bean name="propertyResource" class="org.springframework.core.io.ClassPathResource">
		<constructor-arg><value>spring-config.properties</value></constructor-arg>
	</bean>