With the directory on the classpath, from a class loaded by the same classloader, you should be able to use either of:
// From ClassLoader, all paths are "absolute" already - there's no context // from which they could be relative. Therefore you don't need a leading slash. InputStream in = this.getClass().getClassLoader() .getResourceAsStream("SomeTextFile.txt"); // From Class, the path is relative to the package of the class unless // you include a leading slash, so if you don't want to use the current // package, include a slash like this: InputStream in = this.getClass().getResourceAsStream("/SomeTextFile.txt");
If those aren’t working, that suggests something else is wrong.
So for example, take this code:
package dummy; import java.io.*; public class Test { public static void main(String[] args) { InputStream stream = Test.class.getResourceAsStream("/SomeTextFile.txt"); System.out.println(stream != null); stream = Test.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("SomeTextFile.txt"); System.out.println(stream != null); } }
And this directory structure:
code dummy Test.class txt SomeTextFile.txt
And then (using the Unix path separator as I’m on a Linux box):
java -classpath code:txt dummy.Test
Results:
true