Spring cannot find bean xml configuration file when it does exist

applicationcontextconfigurationjavabeansspring

I am trying to make my first bean in Spring but got a problem with loading a context.
I have a configuration XML file of the bean in src/main/resources.

I receive the following IOException:

Exception in thread "main" org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: IOException parsing XML document from class path resource [src/main/resources/beans.xml]; nested exception is

java.io.FileNotFoundException: class path resource [src/main/resources/beans.xml] cannot
be opened because it does not exist

but I don't get it, since I do the following code test:

File f = new File("src/main/resources/beans.xml");
System.out.println("Exist test: " + f.exists());

which gives me true! resources is in the classpath. What's wrong?

Best Answer

Thanks, but that was not the solution. I found it out why it wasn't working for me.

Since I'd done a declaration:

ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("beans.xml");

I thought I would refer to root directory of the project when beans.xml file was there. Then I put the configuration file to src/main/resources and changed initialization to:

ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("src/main/resources/beans.xml");

it still was an IO Exception.

Then the file was left in src/main/resources/ but I changed declaration to:

ApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("beans.xml");

and it solved the problem - maybe it will be helpful for someone.

thanks and cheers!

Edit:

Since I get many people thumbs up for the solution and had had first experience with Spring as student few years ago, I feel desire to explain shortly why it works.

When the project is being compiled and packaged, all the files and subdirs from 'src/main/java' in the project goes to the root directory of the packaged jar (the artifact we want to create). The same rule applies to 'src/main/resources'.

This is a convention respected by many tools like maven or sbt in process of building project (note: as a default configuration!). When code (from the post) was in running mode, it couldn't find nothing like "src/main/resources/beans.xml" due to the fact, that beans.xml was in the root of jar (copied to /beans.xml in created jar/ear/war).

When using ClassPathXmlApplicationContext, the proper location declaration for beans xml definitions, in this case, was "/beans.xml", since this is path where it belongs in jar and later on in classpath.

It can be verified by unpacking a jar with an archiver (i.e. rar) and see its content with the directories structure.

I would recommend reading articles about classpath as supplementary.

Related Solutions

Spring – applicationContext.xml cannot be opened because it does not exist

You should keep your Spring files in another folder, marked as "source" (just like "src" or "resources").

WEB-INF is not a source folder, therefore it will not be included in the classpath (i.e. JUnit will not look for anything there).

Java – Can not open beans.xml (config file) because does not exist

Here's the file structure I normally use, which works fine. As @M.Deinum said, you'll want to put your xml file in a src/main/resources. I normally put to the it in a complete package path with the resources so during compile time, maven will add all the resources to same path as the corresponding classes that use them.

enter image description here

resources get copied to the class package when you do the above

enter image description here

public class App {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ApplicationContext context
                = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("com/underdogdevs/stackmaven/beans.xml");

        Hello hello = (Hello) context.getBean("hello");
        hello.sayHello();
    }
}

Works fine for me. If you're wondering why you still need to use the complete package name when the xml is already in the same class packages, its it will first be searched for in the class root

UPDATE

put the package with the bean.xml into the src/main/resources. It should work with the path your using.

UPDATE 2

"Yes, it worked. But why is it working the example, I'm following as well. If the beans.xml is out of src/main/resources .. I can't find out how that works? *

The thing is, the Spring container will look from the class root. It has nothing to with the resources folder. The resources is a convenience dir for maven projects to build to your class path. The reason the tutorial works, is that the beans.xml is in a package, that will get put into the class path in the build, as seen below. It is only preferred to use a resources, but a package` will also build to the class path.

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Spring – applicationContext.xml cannot be opened because it does not exist

Java – Can not open beans.xml (config file) because does not exist

Related Topic