Spring application context unable to find property files under maven resources folder

Question

I am using maven in my project & I've put database.properties file under maven resources folder.

I am accessing it in spring application context

<context:property-placeholder location="classpath:database.properties" />

But I don't understand why I am getting this file not found error on server start.

Could not load properties; nested exception is java.io.FileNotFoundException: class path resource [database.properties] cannot be opened because it does not exist

To my knowledge whatever resource is put under resources folder it is added to the classpath automatically by maven.

pom.xml

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.myapp</groupId>
    <artifactId>myapp</artifactId>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>myapp Maven Webapp</name>
    <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>3.8.1</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <finalName>myapp</finalName>
    </build>
</project>

NOTE: Seems like there is some problem with the M2E plugin of eclipse luna. Executed the same code in Juno & it worked fine.

Answer 1

That's not enough to build a deployable war file with maven. You need at least the war plugin. There's a thorough tutorial here:

http://crunchify.com/how-to-create-a-war-file-from-eclipse-using-maven-plugin-apache-maven-war-plugin-usage/

Your pom will look something like below, and you'll need to run mvn clean install against that.

Also I see you have a spring app, where are the spring dependencies in the pom file?

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>CrunchifyTutorial</groupId>
    <artifactId>CrunchifyTutorial</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <build>
        <sourceDirectory>src</sourceDirectory>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.7</source>
                    <target>1.7</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.4</version>
                <configuration>
                    <warSourceDirectory>WebContent</warSourceDirectory>
                    <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.5</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>