Spring boot - Default properties file not being read when using profile

Question

I have a spring boot 2 application with 2 property files:

• application.properties
• application-dev.properties

When I run the application in IntellijIdea using the dev profile, Spring reads both the profile specific file and the default file.

Once I build an executable jar file, I created a new application-prod.properties outside of the jar, with production environment properties and execute the application with --spring.profiles.active=prod expecting it to read this file AND the default application.properties , but it is only reading the file outside the jar (application-prod.properties).

Should Spring Boot read both files or am I expecting something that it does not do by default?

If it should, what can I be missing?

Answer 1

As mentioned by Michael, Spring boot supports property hierarchies .

I tried this and it works as expected, you can find a reference project in here

A few things that I can think about:

• Extract the contents of your jar file and confirm that the file named application.properties is bundled in there.

• You may be overwriting the spring.config.location property and using filenames instead of directories

From Spring Boot documentation

If you have specified any files in spring.config.location, profile-specific variants of those files are not considered. Use directories in spring.config.location if you want to also use profile-specific properties.

• If you override the default spring.config.location then the application may not be able to find the default application.properties file.

Answer 2

By default, application.properties will be used to run the Spring Boot application. While running the JAR file, you need to specify the spring active profile. only one file will be read