Maven exec:java : how to open and read a file in the resources directory?

I guess I will answer my own question, Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResourceAsStream() works the best for me, especially when the project produces a jar dependency for another web project.

Figure I'd add to the answers.

You can also use:

InputStream file = ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream("res.txt");

Try

InputStream IS = Main.class.getResourceAsStream("res.txt");

to access the content of res.txt. Pay attention to the encoding of your text file (beware of defaults). If your maven project is set on UTF-8 for example, make sure res.txt is encoded in UTF-8 too, otherwise, you'll get funny errors at runtime.