Load file from '/conf' directory on Cloudbees

Question

What we do :

We run Play2 application on Cloudbees and we load a file from '/conf' directory (inside the classpath of the application).

These 2 snippets work in local and at heroku

Play.application().getFile("conf/myfile.json")

and

new File("conf/myfile.json")

However, on Cloudbees, we get FileNotFoundException :

java.io.FileNotFoundException: /var/genapp/apps/..../conf/myfile.json (No such file or directory)

So how to load a file from classpath on Cloudbees?

Morrismorrison

I think it works on Heroku as they don't run play in production style - they just run the play CLI to launch it, so it is only by accident that it works there. – Borrell

Answer 1

Well, files in '/conf' are in the classpath and not on the filesystem so we need to load the file this way :

Play.application.resourceAsStream("myfile.json")
//.resource() also works - depends what we want

Note that we don't put "conf" in the path - files in there are on the classpath in the root.

Note that in production it comes from a jar/zip, not a file - so getFile is somewhat misleading in play.

Michael Neale from Cloudbees opened this issue : https://github.com/playframework/Play20/issues/1079

Cloudbees documentation has been updated : https://wiki.cloudbees.com/bin/view/RUN/Playframework#HLoadingconfigfilesinproduction

Morrismorrison

Not sure when this changed on the Play api but I had to use Play.application().resourceAsStream instead of Play.application.resourceAsStream – Hallow

What if I want a file that's not a configuration file? I don't like the idea of putting non-conf-related files in the conf dir just so I can access them via resourceAsStream() – Winterize

The files in conf/ directory are packaged as a default-appname-version.jarinside 'lib/' folder. So the correct understanding would be that all files inside that default jar are accessible. However, there is also a conf/' folder in the zip archive created using dist` command. Files in this conf/ folder are not in the classpath. – Lesotho

Answer 2

I am using play 2.4. What works for me was

import play.Play;
import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;

  String myfile = IOUtils.toString(Play.application().resourceAsStream("myfile.json"));

NOTE: application() is called as a static method.

Is

Answer 3

It seems that Heroku run play apps via "play start" or "play run" which is not the recommended way for play apps to run in production - this explains why "conf" is visible there - although this could change in a future version of play.

Borrell