How to use property-placeholder for file on filesystem

We used to have a way to load properties from a file on the classpath: ``` <context:property-placeholder location="classpath:myConfigFile.properties" /> ``` and it worked great. But now we want to load properties from a specific file on the system that is NOT in the classpath. We wanted to be able to dynamically load the file, so we are using a Java environment variable to populate it. I'll give a simple example below: In Java: ``` System.setProperty("my.prop.file", "/path/to/myConfigFile.properties"); ``` In Spring XML: ``` <context:property-placeholder location="${my.prop.file}" /> ``` I've also tried it this way, thanks to an idea from Luciano: ``` <context:property-placeholder properties-ref="prop" /> <util:properties id="prop" location="reso"/> <bean id="reso" class="org.springframework.core.io.FileSystemResource"> <constructor-arg index="0" value="${my.prop.file}" /> </bean> ``` Everything I've tried has failed. No matter what I set my.prop.file to. Greatest hits include: ``` <context:property-placeholder location="/path/to/myConfigFile.properties" /> (ClassNotFoundException: .path.to.myConfigFile.properties) <context:property-placeholder location="file:/path/to/myConfigFile.properties" /> (ClassNotFoundException: file:.path.to.myConfigFile.properties) <context:property-placeholder location="file:///path/to/myConfigFile.properties" /> (ClassNotFoundException: file:...path.to.myConfigFile.properties) ``` How do you use property-placeholders with a location that is on the file system and NOT on the classpath? We are using Spring 3.0.5. It turns out there was a problem with the script running the Java program that loads the spring file. Thank you for helping. I am going to request that this question be deleted, as the original code works after all. Thank you for your help.