Resource files not found from JUnit test cases

My mistake, the resource files WERE actually copied to target/test-classes. The problem seemed to be due to spaces in my project name, e.g. Project%20Name.

I'm now loading the file as follows and it works:

org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils.toFile(myClass().getResource("resourceFile.txt")‌​);

Or, (taken from Java: how to get a File from an escaped URL?) this may be better (no dependency on Apache Commons):

myClass().getResource("resourceFile.txt")‌​.toURI();

You know that Maven is based on the Convention over Configuration pardigm? so you shouldn't configure things which are the defaults.

All that stuff represents the default in Maven. So best practice is don't define it it's already done.

    <directory>target</directory>
    <outputDirectory>target/classes</outputDirectory>
    <testOutputDirectory>target/test-classes</testOutputDirectory>
    <sourceDirectory>src/main/java</sourceDirectory>
    <testSourceDirectory>src/test/java</testSourceDirectory>
    <resources>
        <resource>
            <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
        </resource>
    </resources>
    <testResources>
        <testResource>
            <directory>src/test/resources</directory>
        </testResource>
    </testResources>