Java Programming

Hi all

I have a JCP that's working as I require, apart from one small issue.
I want to open a file, read the contents, and then process them. I do this as follows:

fileReader = new FileReader("/d01/oracle/visappl/file.txt");

This works when I hard code the full path. However, when I try to use an application relative path, it doesn't work:

fileReader = new FileReader("$APPL_TOP/file.txt");
I get a file not found error.

$APPL_TOP is a virtual directory that the Oracle database understands. It is OS independent, in that the database will know where it points to in the OS.

Has anybody done this before?

Thanks