Eclipse - Reference file in another Project

Question

Edit: My solution at bottom of post.

I have 2 projects that share the same XML/XSD data in eclipse. I've tried many different things to break the data into a separate project and just reference that instead through various methods, with not much luck. My goal is so I can click run in eclipse for each project separately and they both load from the same data.

When the project is finally built, there will be 3 jars (the two projects,+ a lib), which will be in the same directory with the xml and xsd folders. So any file references to the XSD/XMLs are currently in the format like this:

File file = new File("xml/pixtilemaps.xml");

This doesn't work in eclipse, but works during export because of the file structure is sound. I tried using virtual folders in each of the projects, but it doesn't look like runtime references to relative files use the virtual folders in the way I was expecting. I've tried adding each as a linked resource, added the project on the build path, etc, but whatever I do, it doesn't seem to treat the xml folder as a relative folder. I get an error like : file:/F:/workspace/com.myoid.editor/xsd/pixtilemaps.xsd does not exist. Because it takes it relative to the project. I've also tried to find a run configuration solution to this, but there is obviously something I'm not understanding to get this to work the way I want.

So in summary, have an xsd folder, xml folder in a 3rd eclipse project, that I want 1 and 2 to be able to access through relative file paths like

File file = new File("xml/pixtilemaps.xml");

How I fixed it:

Okay.. so.. maybe there is a better solution but this is what I came up with... In Eclipse under run configurations you can specify the working directory that the launch will run from. So I put all xml/xsd in for both projects in the same "working directory". In the run configuration for each project I point the working directory to the 3rd project, and viola, it works like I had expected.

Answer 1

Did you try to reference project 3 in project 1 and 2 via project menu -> properties -> java build path -> add project?

Answer 2

Add third project n the build path of first two projects as project reference.

Use ClassLoader.getResourceAsStream in place of File in first two projects as below:

    this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("/xml/pixtilemaps.xml");