Reading file in deployment enviroment

Question

Hi,
I need to read the file "ftest" in the folder "D:\installable\tomcat\jakarta-tomcat-5.0.19\webapps\LocMod". Is it possible to give relative path in Filereader()? As per my examination, tomcat 5.0 is taking only the absolute path in the Filereader(), which won't be helpful in the production environment. If i have to read the file by giving the relative path, How can i achieve that?
I have given my code here:
Html content:
<form ACTION="http://localhost:8080/LocMod/LocServlet"
ENCTYPE="x-www-form-urlencoded">
java servlet:
public class LocServlet extends HttpServlet {
     protected void doGet(
          HttpServletRequest request,
          HttpServletResponse response)
          throws ServletException, IOException {
               PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
               out.println("here servlet\n");
               System.out.println("path:>:" + getServletContext().getRealPath("/"));
               //BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("D:\\ftest")); //OK
               //BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("..\\webapps\\LocMod\\ftest")); // Not OK
               //BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(getServletContext().getRealPath("/")+ "\\ftest")); //OK
               BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("ftest")); //not OK
               String str;
               while((str = in.readLine()) != null)
                    out.println(str);
               in.close();
Thanks.
Best regards,
Lakshmi

Answer 1

I think the best thing to do is to put that file in the CLASSPATH (e.g., WEB-INF/classes) and use the ServletContext.getResourceAsStream() method to get an InputStream for reading. That'll work even if you package your app in a WAR file. I think it's the path-independent way to go.