CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javanetbeans
Steve
Steve

Reputation: 4681

Where does Netbeans read files from?

I'm trying to read from a text file in Netbeans. In the top level of my project directory I have foo.txt. Then in my code I have:

File file = new File("foo.txt");

It throws a FileNotFoundException, however. It's a Java web application using Spring and Tomcat, but I'm not sure if those details matter since I'm running the whole thing inside Netbeans. Basically, I just want to know where I need to put the file so Netbeans will read it.

Update - good call guys, it's looking in Tomcat's bin directory. Now this may be a stupid question but, how would I go about getting it to look in my top level project directory? I feel like dropping text files into tomcat's bin would be innapropriate.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 10527

Answers (4)

ratchet freak
ratchet freak

Reputation: 48186

try System.getProperty("user.dir") to get current working directory

Upvotes: 0

Marsellus Wallace
Marsellus Wallace

Reputation: 18601

I would use the following to figure out where to put the file:

System.out.println(System.getProperty("user.dir"));

Upvotes: 4

Jack Edmonds
Jack Edmonds

Reputation: 33161

To directly answer your question, If you're running an application on Tomcat, files will be opened from the current working directory. That will likely be the bin/ folder in your tomcat directory.

You can find out for sure where your program is looking by examining the result of file.getAbsolutePath().

However, for web applications, I would suggest putting files you need to read in your classpath so you don't have to depend on a certain file structure when you deploy your web application.

Upvotes: 3

Beau Grantham
Beau Grantham

Reputation: 3456

You can try printing the absolute path of the File object to see where it is looking on the filesystem.

System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath());

Upvotes: 5

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