working directory in web application

I have my Java project, say in C:\User\Workspace\myApplication
And there’s an xml file in that folder: C:\User\Workspace\myApplication\myXML.xml

And in my java program, I will take that xml file to retrieve information. So, I need to call it from my program. And now I am loading that file like:
File xmlfile = new File(“C:\\User\\Workspace\\myApplication\\myXML.xm l”)

And I know that it’s not a good way to load a file using directly the absolute path. So, I try to call it from my program dynamically. Here, my program is web application. And I use Tomcat.

First, I tried this way:

File directory = new File(“.”);
String loc = directory.getCanonicalPath();
File xmlfile = new File(loc + “myXML.xml”);

And, second I tried using: System.getProperty(“user.dir”);

Both first and second way give me the same result. When I tried to test those methods as Java application, they both gave me the path : C: \User\Workspace\myApplication

But when I tried to put it in my program which accepts input from JSP and run on server, then the result path is: C:\Eclipse. So, there’s an error that the system cannot find the file.

Why it cannot find the actual path?
And how can I do it to load that xml file into my Java program.

Any reply would be greatly appreciated.

If you want to "get" a file on the client, forget this entirely and Google "Java File Upload". If you want a file on the server, place it somewhere in the web application directory and start with getResource/getResourceAsStream/getContext/getContextPath/getRealPath calls of ServletContext.

Java EE 5