Reading file external to jar file

I have a jar file which needs to read a properties file in the same location as the jar file. I get a filenotfound exception when I run the following command
D:\emailer>java -jar test.jar

the test.jar and the .properties file are in the same folder i.e d:\emailer

however when i run this app from eclipse its able to find the prop file and no errors thrown. Do I need to do anything different when i run it as a jar file?

What code do you use to access the file? Post it in the form of an SSCCE, and don't forget the code tags.

Here is my code. Let me know if I need to do anything different

Code:

---

public class MailerProperties {

        private static Properties properties;
       
        public MailerProperties() {
                properties = new Properties();
                InputStream inStream;
                try {
                        inStream = (new ClassPathResource("mailer.properties")).getInputStream();                       
                        properties.load(inStream);
                } catch (IOException e) {                       
                        e.printStackTrace();
                }       
        }
       
        public String getValue(String key) {
                return properties.getProperty(key);
        }

       
}

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and I also tried the code given below. Both did not work

Code:

---

File f = new File("mailer.properties");
if(f.exists()){
    Properties pro = new Properties();
    FileInputStream in = new FileInputStream(f);
    pro.load(in);
    // rest of code that handle the values from file....
}

---

That's not an SSCCE because it's not runnable and it contains a bunch of classes not from the standard API.

But I'll just throw this out there as a hint:

Code:

---

InputStream fileNextToJarStream = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("FileNextToJar.txt");

---

Thanks Kevin, I will try this tomorrow and let you know!

kevin: do i also need to mention this properties file in the manifest file?

Hi, I tried with

Code:

---

inStream = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("/mailer.properties");

---

and also with

Code:

---

inStream = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("mailer.properties");

---

but in both the cases I got
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.abc.gip.mailer.utils.MailerProperties.<init>(M ailerPropertie
s.java:31)