Accessing files in NetBeans

[Jack Mullaly]

How do I read data from files which are outside the Netbeans project?

For example I am tring to acces a file from another Project called "Thinking" called "RS.txt" its Absolute path being C:\JavaPrograms\Thinking\RS.txt.

I type this File file = new File("JavaPrograms.Thinking.RS.txt");

I get a File Not Found Exceptions.

Learning this Netbeans is extra work, besides learning Java.
Please help.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Jack,
If you call new File() without specifying a path, the IDE uses the current working directory. I don't know where that is for NetBeans. You can find out by writing:
System.out.println(file.getPath());

[Jack Mullaly]

Jeanne,
How do you usually specify the path for a file in an IDE?
I tried this: File file = new File("JavaPrograms.Thinking.RS.txt");
Thanks

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Jack,
I usually use an absolute path, so I would say:
File file = new File("C:\\JavaPrograms\\Thinking\\RS.txt");

The backslashes are escaped because they are special characters in Java.