Relative path problem in ANT junit task

Question

I have setup an ant script as eclipse builder to automatically run all my tests, like below:

<project name="auto-test" default="test">
    <property name="tst-dir" location="C:\STAF\services\custom\TopCoder\bin" />
    <path id="classpath.base" />
    <path id="classpath.test">
        <pathelement location="D:\eclipse\eclipse\plugins\org.junit4_4.3.1\junit.jar" />
        <pathelement location="${tst-dir}" />
        <path refid="classpath.base" />

    </path>
    <target name="test" description="Run the tests">
        <junit>
            <classpath refid="classpath.test" />
            <formatter type="brief" usefile="false" />
            <test name="testDataGenerator.test.AllTests" />
        </junit>
    </target>
</project>

It was all good before I changed a test fixture file from absolute path to relative path:

SAXReader reader = new SAXReader();
Document document = reader.read(new File(".").getCanonicalPath()+"\\conf\\TestData.xml");

The ant task now try to open D:\eclipse\eclipse\conf\TestData.xml, instead of C:\STAF\services\custom\TopCoder\conf\TestData.xml, I've also try to run AllTests manually from Eclipse and it's all good.

Has anyone met similar problem before?

Thanks in advance.

PS. ANT_HOME=D:\eclipse\eclipse\plugins\org.apache.ant_1.7.0.v200706080842

Follow up: I tried to run the ant script from command line, and find below:

C:\STAF\services\custom\TopCoder>ant -f c:\STAF\services\custom\TopCoder\task\build.xml, the ant script works correctly.
C:>ant -f c:\STAF\services\custom\TopCoder\task\build.xml, the script will claim: [junit] C:\conf\TestData.xml (The system cannot find the path specified)

I've also checked eclipse builder setting, there seems nothing to change the path to D:\eclipse\eclipse.

kgiannakakis kgiannakakis · Accepted Answer · 2010-02-25T08:49:54

Java resolves relative paths against the current user directory, which is typically the directory from where the java program was invoked.

One way to overcome this issue is to define an environmental variable for your base path. Then, you could easily use "relative paths" (meaning, create absolute paths by concatenating the base path and the relative path).

Relative path problem in ANT junit task

3 Answers