What is the Path.get(".") refering to in my Java project?

In my current project the root directory is C:\Users\Duke. The Java class which calls Path.get(".") is in the path of C:\Users\Duke\src\dependencies\storage\Store.java. I needed to write and save data to a file, but since it has to run on different systems, I could not specify the absolute path.

I did a call on Path.get(".").forEach(System.out::println) and it printed out all the directories in src instead of storage. This has left me extremely confused. Shouldn't the Path.get(".") refer to current directory of where the code resides, which is in the storage directory?

A . denotes a relative path to the "working directory", namely the directory your program is run from. This is typically not the directory or path of the source file(s) your program is compiled from. You can do Paths.get(".").toAbsolutePath() to see the exact directory it represents.

If you're using an IDE it can be hard to tell which directory it uses as its working directory, but typically it will be the project root. You can usually configure the working directory from within the IDE.

If you're trying to load files, such as data files, that are part of the project you may find resources better than accessing the filesystem directly.

. returns the application's working directory. In general that's the directory from where you are starting the Java Virtual Machine in order to execute Java classes.

It can't refer to the location of the code because that can be everywhere, e.g. some place in the internet where your classloader downloaded the classes that are executed (something that was very common in the Old Days[TM] when Java Applets were still a thing or with Webstart-applications).