getResourceAsStream returns null?

Question

I saw same posts like this but any of them could resolve my problem. I have my environment.properties which i want to access by:

InputStream inputStream = this.getClass().getResourceAsStream("/support/environment.properties");

inputStream is always receiving null. This is my project structure

MyProject
->src
-->test
--->java
---->com.desp.automation.config (package)
----->CrossAutomationConfigTest
-->main
--->resources
---->support
----->environment.properties

Do you know what's happening ? I would appreciate your help. Regards

Answer 1

This happens to me all the time! The actual path to the resource depends on the class loader meaning it depends on whether you are running in pure java, or a web container. I usually nail it by playing with the path to find it...things to try:

(1) /resoures/support/... (2) / main/resources/support/... (3) the above without a leading /

I think the requirement for the leading / depends on whether you are calling getResourceAsStream from a static or non-static method and whether the resources are packaged in an archive (zip/jar/war) or whether the app is unarchived into files in the deployment environment.

To avoid deployment issues, I write some code to 'discover' the path by trying getResourceAsStream until a non-null inputStream is returned.