How to read properties file in web application?

How to read properties file in web application?

Several notes:

1. You should prefer the ClassLoader as returned by Thread#getContextClassLoader().

   ClassLoader classLoader = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader();

   This returns the parentmost classloader which has access to all resources. The Class#getClassLoader() will only return the (child) classloader of the class in question which may not per se have access to the desired resource. It will always work in environments with a single classloader, but not always in environments with a complex hierarchy of classloaders like webapps.
2. The /WEB-INF folder is not in the root of the classpath. The /WEB-INF/classes folder is. So you need to load the properties files relative to that.

   classLoader.getResourceAsStream("/auth.properties");

   If you opt for using the Thread#getContextClassLoader(), remove the leading /.