Velocity Error:Resource Not Found Exception

[Elton Hughes]

Hello All,

Based on a 9 horse shoe review, I bought Pro Jakarta Velocity. I have just started the book and I am having troubles with the first example program. It is the Velocity version of the famous "Hello World" program. The code is this:

package org.novaworks.ch02;
 
import java.io.StringWriter;
import java.io.Writer;
 
import org.apache.velocity.Template;
import org.apache.velocity.VelocityContext;
import org.apache.velocity.app.Velocity;
 
public class HelloWorld {
 
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

// initialize Velocity
Velocity.init();

// Get the template
Template template = Velocity.getTemplate("src/templates/ch02/HelloWorld.vm");

// Create a context for Velocity
VelocityContext context = new VelocityContext();

// Create the output
Writer writer = new StringWriter();
template.merge(context, writer);

// Write out
System.out.println(writer.toString());

}

}  

It compiles, but when I run it I get the following message:
-> java org.novaworks.ch02.HelloWorld
Exception in thread "main" org.apache.velocity.exception.ResourceNotFoundException: Unable to find resource 'src/templates/ch02/HelloWorld.vm'
at org.apache.velocity.runtime.resource.ResourceManagerImpl.loadResource(ResourceManagerImpl.java:458)
at org.apache.velocity.runtime.resource.ResourceManagerImpl.getResource(ResourceManagerImpl.java:341)
at org.apache.velocity.runtime.RuntimeInstance.getTemplate(RuntimeInstance.java:831)
at org.apache.velocity.runtime.RuntimeInstance.getTemplate(RuntimeInstance.java:813)
at org.apache.velocity.runtime.RuntimeSingleton.getTemplate(RuntimeSingleton.java:285)
at org.apache.velocity.app.Velocity.getTemplate(Velocity.java:469)
at org.novaworks.ch02.HelloWorld.main(Unknown Source)
->

It appears that the program is unable to find the template.

Unfortunately, I am at a loss as to how to solve the problem. Any insight and help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Elton

[Carol Enderlin]

What directory are you running your java command from?

It sounds like it is expecting you to run that from the pro-jakarta-velocity directory. I'm assuming you downloaded the sample code or you put the hello world template where the code is looking for it: "src/templates/ch02/HelloWorld.vm".

It sounds like it needs to be able to find that path from the place you run the java command. If that doesn't work, is the dir containing the src dir on the classpath?

I downloaded the sample chapter and it says about the template, "Save this file to a location where it will be accessible from your code." Not very helpful.

[Carol Enderlin]

Actually I didn't feel like messing with setting up the classpath to get the ch 2 hello world to run on the command line so I put this into the build.xml that comes in the sample code

 
<target name="ch2" depends="compile">    
    <java classname="com.apress.pjv.ch2.HelloWorld">
        <classpath refid="project.classpath" />
    </java>
</target>
 
 

It ran ok for me:

C:\_tools\pro-jakarta-velocity>ant ch2
Buildfile: build.xml

clean:
[delete] Deleting directory C:\_tools\pro-jakarta-velocity\build
[mkdir] Created dir: C:\_tools\pro-jakarta-velocity\build

compile:
[javac] Compiling 88 source files to C:\_tools\pro-jakarta-velocity\build

ch2:
[java] Hello World!

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 8 seconds