You don't have to specify the whole " F:\\Programming\\Processing\\Processing\\Game\\data\\" when reading a file. It's going to be read from the data folder.

If he takes out the complete file spec (the F:\\ etc part), processing cannot find the image even though it is in the data folder. All other loadImage calls have worked fine - they find the images correctly in the data folder. There are about 90 some images in the data folder.

The fix is very simple: move the creation of the Person object to setup(). The data folder is known only when setup() has started, so if you create the object at declaration time, before anything else is run, the images cannot be found.

I have a problem that might be the same one. I have written an experiment that I run several times for each set of parameter values. I want to save them with the same name apart from an appended serial number, such as Sp1Sep2_1.csv, Sp1Sep2_2.csv, ...  I may want to save the files in a folder chosen by me or in the default "data" folder in the folder with my source code. I  check for the next name in the series by looking to see if Sp1Sep2_1.csv exists, then _2 ...

1. If I have selected a folder from a dialogue, all is well. But if I just give a relative filename, it will see if the file exists in the "data" folder and then write the file to to parent of the "data" folder. The relevant code lines are  myFileBase = "Sp"+ival+"Sep"+isep+"Bgs"+nbg+"_";
     if (defaultFolder == true || folderChosen == false) {
       local = true;
     }
     else {
       local = false;
     }
     //Check whether the file exists, and incremenet the serial number if it does
     for (int i = 1; i < 11; i++) {
       if (local == true) {
         myFile = myFileBase+i+".csv";
       }
       else {
         myFile = dataFolder+myFileBase+i+".csv";
       }
       //    println ("trying myFile = "+myFile);
       f = dataFile(myFile);
       //    println("Looking for file "+f);
       if (f.exists() == false) {
         println("Did not find "+myFile);
         break;
       }
     .....

followed later by
saveStrings(myFile, lines);


"myFile" for f.exists is in "data" but myFile for saveStrings is not. I've looked for some reference to "dataFile" both in the language reference and in the javadoc for java.io.file with no luck, because I suspect that might be where the spurious "data" gets added to the path. Is that where it is? and if so, is there another way to find out whether the file exists in the same place to which I write when I just want to use the default data folder? It's a bit of a kludge to look for the file in one place and then add "data/" before the file name for writing. This all seemed to work before the b8 upgrade, though I may be wrong, as I have made other coding changes that shouldn't but may have affected the file operations.

This behavior is not new. Default folder for reading files via loadXxxx() functions is the data folder. Default folder for writing files is the sketch folder. So you have to append data yourself, or, as you found out, use dataPath() or dataFile() functions.

Checking if file exists: see java.io.File.exists()

Thanks for the information. This is my first real Processing program, so I apologise for apparent stupidity. I found dataFile() in an example and tried to use it as in the example. I hadn't come across dataPath(). Neither of the dataXxxx() functions appear in the language reference web page, which is where I tried to find dataFile() when I got into trouble. Nor can I find them in the javadocs for java.io.file. Where can I find information about them?

" I apologise for apparent stupidity"
No need for that, as you found out, the information isn't easily available. And there are lot of beginners here, so we are used to answer the same questions (hey, at least you try and search the forum).

There was a JavaDoc for Processing, more complete (but less easy) than the Reference, but I can't find it back.
Otherwise, there is forum lore... and reading the source code!

There was a JavaDoc for Processing, more complete (but less easy) than the Reference, but I can't find it back.

I guess I was able to find it:
http://processing.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/processing/build/javadoc/core/index.html

And source code too:
https://github.com/processing/processing/tree/master/core/src/processing

Thanks very much. It's very helpful. though some of the descriptions
talk about differences to come in Processing 2.0. I guess one has to
take some of it with a grain of salt, and try before believing.

Martin