How to get the current working directory in Java

In Java, we can use System.getProperty("user.dir") to get the current working directory, the directory from where your program was launched.

  String dir = System.getProperty("user.dir");

  // directory from where the program was launched
  // e.g /home/favtuts/projects/core-java/java-io
  System.out.println(dir);

One of the good things about this system property user.dir is we can easily override the system property via a -D argument, for example:

java -Duser.dir=/home/favtuts/ -jar abc.jar

1. Working Directory

The below program shows different ways like File, Paths, FileSystems, or system property to get the current working directory; all methods will return the same result.

CurrentWorkingDirectory.java

package com.favtuts.io.howto;

import java.io.File;
import java.nio.file.FileSystems;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class CurrentWorkingDirectory {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        
        //printCurrentWorkingDirectory1();
        //printCurrentWorkingDirectory2();
        //printCurrentWorkingDirectory3();
        printCurrentWorkingDirectory4();

    }
    
    // System.Property 
    private static void printCurrentWorkingDirectory1() {
        String userDirectory = System.getProperty("user.dir");
        System.out.println(userDirectory);
    }

    // Path, Java 7
    private static void printCurrentWorkingDirectory2() {
        String userDirectory = Paths.get("")
            .toAbsolutePath()
            .toString();
        System.out.println(userDirectory);        
    }

    // File("")
    private static void printCurrentWorkingDirectory3() {
        String userDirectory = new File("").getAbsolutePath();
        System.out.println(userDirectory);
    }

    // FileSystems
    private static void printCurrentWorkingDirectory4() {
        String userDirectory = FileSystems.getDefault()
            .getPath("")
            .toAbsolutePath()
            .toString();
        System.out.println(userDirectory);
    }
}

Output

/home/favtuts/projects/core-java/java-io
/home/favtuts/projects/core-java/java-io
/home/favtuts/projects/core-java/java-io
/home/favtuts/projects/core-java/java-io

Normally, we use the System.getProperty("user.dir") to get the current working directory.

2. Working Directory for JAR file?

Do not use System.getProperty("user.dir"), File or Path to access a file that is inside a JAR file, it is not going to work. Instead, we should use getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream().

// get a file from the resources folder, root of classpath in JAR
private InputStream getFileFromResourceAsStream(String fileName) {

    // The class loader that loaded the class
    ClassLoader classLoader = getClass().getClassLoader();
    InputStream inputStream = classLoader.getResourceAsStream(fileName);

    // the stream holding the file content
    if (inputStream == null) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("file not found! " + fileName);
    } else {
        return inputStream;
    }

}

Note

The above code is extracted from this Read a file from resources folder. Refer to example 2 for accessing a file that is inside a JAR file.

Download Source Code

$ git clone https://github.com/favtuts/java-core-tutorials-examples

$ cd java-io/howto

References

• Java – Read a file from resources folder
• File JavaDoc
• Path JavaDoc
• How to display all System properties
• Wikipedia – Working Directory