Path inside an web app not a direct link

Question

in my project i am currently using direct links, these store specific files that get uploaded to the server, these locations are all in the folder of the project (fileupload)

destinationPDF=D:/Documents/NetBeansProjects/printing~subversion/fileupload/web/resources/pdf/
destination=D:/Documents/NetBeansProjects/printing~subversion/fileupload/Uploaded/
fileList =D:/Documents/NetBeansProjects/printing~subversion/fileupload/web/resources/Directory Files/directoryFiles.txt

but this is not an ideal situation, as i am currently testing on multiple machines and each machine needs a different path, so i am wondering, is it possible to create a path so that it does not matter what machine it is on

Answer 1

Just make it externally configurable. There are various ways to achieve that.

1. Set an environment variable during server startup.

   SET UPLOAD_LOCATION=C:\path\to\uploads
   

   It's available as follows:

   String uploadLocation = System.getenv("UPLOAD_LOCATION");
   

2. Set a VM argument during server startup.

   -Dupload.location="C:\path\to\uploads"
   

   It's available as follows:

   String uploadLocation = System.getProperty("upload.location");
   

3. Set it as a properties file entry.

   upload.location=C:\path\to\uploads
   

   It's available the usual Properties API way:

   String uploadLocation = properties.getProperty("upload.location");
   

   The location of the properties file itself is actually a whole question at its own, which is already answered here: Where to place and how to read configuration resource files in servlet based application?

Either way, you can easily reference the files as follows:

File some = new File(uploadLocation, "some.ext");