Spring boot cannot find velocity toolbox.xml inside jar file

[aluisiodsv]

When create a simple spring boot application with spring-boot-starter-velocity for velocity templates I was unable to load toolbox.xml file even if I set the spring.velocity.toolbox-config-location property.
When running the application this is the log output when the logging.level.org.apache.velocity was set to DEBUG:

2015-05-04 16:57:53.954 DEBUG 27289 --- [nio-9393-exec-1] o.a.v.t.v.servlet.ServletToolboxManager  : No toolbox was found at '/toolbox.xml'
2015-05-04 16:57:53.960 ERROR 27289 --- [nio-9393-exec-1] o.a.c.c.C.[.[.[/].[dispatcherServlet]    : Servlet.service() for servlet [dispatcherServlet] in context with path [] threw exception [Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException] with root cause
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityToolboxView.createVelocityContext(VelocityToolboxView.java:111)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityView.renderMergedTemplateModel(VelocityView.java:288)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractTemplateView.renderMergedOutputModel(AbstractTemplateView.java:167)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:303)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1244)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.processDispatchResult(DispatcherServlet.java:1027)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:971)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:893)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:966)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:857)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:618)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:842)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:725)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:291)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
        at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
        at org.springframework.web.filter.ttpMethodFilter.doFilterInternal(HiddenHttpMethodFilter.java:77)
        at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
        at org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilterInternal(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:85)
        at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:107)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:239)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:219)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:106)
        at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:501)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:142)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:88)
        at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:516)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1086)
        at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:659)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11NioProtocol.java:223)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1558)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1515)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThrepingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
2015-05-04 16:57:53.967 DEBUG 27289 --- [nio-9393-exec-1] org.apache.velocity                      : ResourceManager : found error.vm with loader org.apache.velocity.runtime.resource.loader.FileResourceLoader

Unfortunately I did not find sufficient documentation in this case.

[wilkinsona]

Velocity attempts to load its toolbox config file using the ServletContext. How are you running your application and what servlet container are you using? Perhaps you can provide a small project that reproduces the problem?

[aluisiodsv]

Off course. It is just a simple project with spring-boot-starter-velocity who use Tomcat as servlet container and is executable jar.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9PUSyNx7RbFLTNJR19sV085RTg/view?usp=sharing

Edit: Just a little change in application.properties:

spring.velocity.toolbox.config.location=toolbox.xml (remove this)
spring.velocity.toolbox-config-location=toolbox.xml (add this)

Sorry for inconvenience.

[wilkinsona]

Thanks

[aluisiodsv]

Any feedback?

[wilkinsona]

Not yet, sorry. I've been out on paternity leave. I'll try to get back to this soon.

[philwebb]

@aluisiodsv

For some reason I can't unzip the archive.

Archive:  velocity-boot.zip
  End-of-central-directory signature not found.  Either this file is not
  a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive.  In the
  latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
  the last disk(s) of this archive.
unzip:  cannot find zipfile directory in one of velocity-boot.zip or
        velocity-boot.zip.zip, and cannot find velocity-boot.zip.ZIP, period.

Could you upload it again or put it on GitHub?

[aluisiodsv]

Congratulations @wilkinsona !!
OMG. Google drive lost my data. oO
I will post again. Sry.

[aluisiodsv]

Better here in github
https://github.com/aluisiodsv/velocity-boot.git

[philwebb]

The ServletToolboxManager is trying to load the toolbox.xml from the ServletContext using getResourceAsStream. Unfortunately this wont work for an embedded jar.

We can probably create a new VelocityToolboxView that loads the xml in a different way.