Where to place config files in JARs?

Question

My JAR currently has the following structure:

myapp.jar
    META-INF
        MANIFEST.MF
    net
        myapp
            MyAppDriver.class (fully qualified as net.myapp.MyAppDriver)
            <lots of other classes>

My app requires the need to read a file from the runtime classpath, and configure itself based on the contents of the file (simplelogger.properties from the SLF4J framework).

Where do I place simplelogger.properties in the JAR? Do I need to set anything inside MANFIEST.MF as well?

Thanks in advance!

try to put your config file near jar file. But it would be better if you can put it inside jar file — Aliaksei Bulhak, Dec 09 '13 at 05:25
Thanks @AlekseiBulgak (+1) - **where inside the JAR?** At the root of the JAR (at same level as `META-INF` and `net` package)? Somewhere else? Thanks again! — DirtyMikeAndTheBoyz, Dec 09 '13 at 05:38
Ahhh, thanks again @AlekseiBulgak - so to confirm: my JAR should have 3 top-level items: (1) simplelogger.properties, (2) net and (3) META-INF? Thanks again! — DirtyMikeAndTheBoyz, Dec 09 '13 at 05:47

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 11 '13 at 18:44

You can place the file in any JAR anywhere you would like. If you want it to live alongside MyAppDriver.class, for example, you could then call getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("net/myapp/simplelogger.properties") to get an InputStream to that file. You don't need a manifest for this to work.

Where to place config files in JARs?

1 Answers1