I recently created a Jira for what I believe is an inappropriate default setting for UIMA_DATAPATH of user.dir -- the working directory. Since when importing by name the datapath is always searched before the classpath this default setting can unexpectedly prevent the correct file from being found. We could just change the documentation to match the implementation but that would require applications to always set UIMA_DATAPATH to some "safe" value.
Changing the code to match the documentation (which implies a default of "nothing") might break some existing applications (those that are accidentally relying on an undocumented feature!) so I propose changing the code so that when UIMA_DATAPATH is not defined the working directory is searched AFTER the classpath. 1. search datapath if UIMA_DATAPATH defined 2. search classpath 3. search working directory if UIMA_DATAPATH not defined This still could break some existing applications but the likelihood is very low, and the fix simple. Alternatively we could always search the working directory last ... or follow another infamous convention and do so only on Windows :) Note that the Javadocs for the ResourceManager say that the datapath is searched first, but most of the documentation hints at the reverse, e.g. "resolved using the classpath and/or the datapath" ~Burn
