Accessing a file in Windows and Linux when working with JAVA+Eclipse.

Question

Hi there. I'm doing some JAVA coding at home and at work. At home i have Linux, work, Windows. The rootpath to X file in Windows is c:\Documents And Settings\User\My Documents\Dropbox\file.xxx and in Linux is something like /media/My Documents/Dropbox/file.xxx

So, every time i edit in either system, i have to manually change the root of the file in a new File(FILEPATH) statement. Is there a workaround for this? I bet if the file root is relative to the project resource tree would do the trick, but that's an Eclipse based solution, not JAVA, i believe.

Answer 1

You could use the user.home property to get the home directory of the current user:

System.getProperty("user.home")

Answer 2

How about using System.getProperty("os.name")? Then set the filepath according to the OS. Another way would be to pass in the root as a parameter.

Answer 3

A couple of suggestions:

• A file in a subdirectory of the project is cross-platform portable (assuming, were you to launch the program outside of Eclipse you would maintain the file in the same location).

• Store the file in a similar relative path to your home directory (~ on Linux %USERPROFILE% on Windows) and use System.getProperty("user.home")

• Store the file on the class path and use ClassLoader.getResourceAsStream() or similar.