How do i access my textfiles in my .jar file? - java

I am making an application where I have to read text-files in order to make my program work. When I run this application in InteliJ it runs perfectly but when I make a .jar file I get a "no such file exception".
Can someone explain me how to access my files inside a .jar file from a class inside the same .jar file?
Can someone also tell me which type of path is more preferable to use (Absolute or relative)?
NOTE: the purpose of the program is to help friends to learn basic words in Arabic. This means that the .jar file will be moved from one computer to the other and it still has to work.
By the way, is putting everything into a .jar something good or are there better ways to put my project in one executable file?
Image of my directory structure
The code i use is:
Path path = Paths.get("src/Multimedia/Woordenschat/Boek1/Arabisch/Hoofdstuk 1.txt");

You can use a BufferedReader and get the file stream with getResourceAsStream():
InputStream in = getClass().getResourceAsStream("path");
BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));

Related

How do you create a file within a Java artifact?

I am currently working on a Java application in Intellij, and I cannot create a file within my artifact. As an example, I'm using File to create a file within the source, which is MainMenuData.txt.
File mainMenu = new File("MainMenuData.txt");
String absPath = mainMenu.getPath();
mainMenu.createNewFile();
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(absPath));
In this, I'm using File to make sure that file exists whenever it isn't.
Instead, I'd like to build within the (Production) artifact. Is that doable?
Anything helps. Thanks.
You could do that.
I assume your artifact is a jar file, which is nothing else than a zip file. You can obtain the location of your jar file in the file system and use the Zip File System to modify it. However I'm not sure, if the jvm might have a problem with that and it might not work on windows, since windows likes to block files, that are in use.
Also this would definitely fail, if your jar file is not stored locally.
A better approach would be to store your data files at the appropriate location in your system.
On Linux(and probably mac): <home>/.local/share/<your application name>/
On Linux(global): /var/lib/<application name>
On Windows(I think, better check it yourself): <appdata>/<your application name>
Your code would look something like this(for Linux):
File home = new File(System.getProperty("HOME");
File configDirectory = new File(home, ".local/share/<application name>");
configDirectory.mkdirs();
File mainMenu = new File(configDirectory, "MainMenuData.txt");
For windows do something similar. If you need both, you should check on which you are currently running.

Unable to reach resources folder when compiling from .jar to .exe using Launch4j

I made a small Java program for academic purposes, its main focus is to read some .txt files and present the information to the user. These files are present in the resources folder, under the src folder.
The program runs as intended when launched from Eclipse.
Using the Launch4j app I was able to successfully create an exe which runs fine and does what's intended, up until I try to read the .txt files I have in the resources folder, which appears not to be able to reach.
I'm guessing that when I launch the exe the run time path would change to where the exe was created, so I created the program in a desktop folder and specified this path in the program, but that doesn't seem to solve the situation.
As an alternative, I moved the .txt files out of the program and once again created the exe in a desktop folder with said .txt files, linked the program to this path and once again it didn't work.
The command used to get the .txt files is:
Files.readAllLines(Paths.get(doc)).get(line)
And doc is simply the path to the intended .txt file.
It's worth noting that I have no previous experience in Java and throughout the development of the program I tried my best to use commands I'd fully understand and to keep it as simple as possible. I hope the solution can be along these lines! I'm very confident this must be a rookie mistake, but I can't seem to find the solution to this specific problem anywhere.
The paths to files in Eclipse are different than the paths to files in an .exe or JAR file.
I will let this other user explain it because I am lazy :p
Rather than trying to address the resource as a File just ask the
ClassLoader to return an InputStream for the resource instead via
getResourceAsStream:
InputStream in = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/file.txt");
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
As long as the file.txt resource is available on the classpath then
this approach will work the same way regardless of whether the
file.txt resource is in a classes/ directory or inside a jar.
The URI is not hierarchical occurs because the URI for a resource
within a jar file is going to look something like this:
file:/example.jar!/file.txt. You cannot read the entries within a jar
(a zip file) like it was a plain old File.
This is explained well by the answers to:
How do I read a resource file from a Java jar file?
Java Jar file: use resource errors: URI is not hierarchical
The original post is here, all credit to its author.
Fixing your URL should let you read from that file when you are using the .exe.
EDITED FOR CORRECTION. Thanks #VGR (see comments) for correcting my mistake.

File cannot be accessed after export (Java)

I know that there are many questions like this out there, but so far there have been none that have been of help.
In eclipse, I have a file inside of my project folder ,and I can get it to load using:
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(new File(path)));
When I export the project it will not load the file because it cannot find the file. I have no idea what is going on. Any suggestions? Thanks.
If you want to read the file, you have two options.
You Could...
Make sure that the file is in the same directory as the exported jar file and/or the same execution context. This will allow you to use something like BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(new File("./" + fileName)));
When referencing the file, it need to specify a relative path to the file.
This means you must ensure that the file is copied to the correct location when ever you move the jar file.
You Could...
Embed the file within the jar as an embedded resource. This means that the file becomes part of the jar file. This also means that you can no longer reference it as a File, but need to use Class#getResource or Class#getResourceAsStream, for example...
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(this.getResourceAsStream("/path/to/resource")));
In order to use this, the file must be placed within the resources directory within your Eclipse project and the directory included within your build path
If you want to be able to write to the file, then you MUST use option one. Embedded resources can not be written to (without a lot of work)

jar file not properly finding the files

I have spent the past 3 nights going crazy trying to find an answer to this.
So I have a java program and I want it to be in a jar format and I want it to be able to read in text and image files.
I got the image files working fine using the this.getClass.getResource("") method, however I can not get the program to properly access the text files within the .jar, When I extract the jar, the text files are there so I know It is not a simple mistake of the text files not being within the jar
This is what I tried using, but it didn't work(It works without a jar, but now within a jar)
URL lurl = this.getClass().getResource("list.txt");
BufferedReader in3 = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(lurl.getFile()));
Fixes?
Assuming your class is
my.package.MyClass
The method will read the file from directory /my/package from JAR.
You can open the resource via:
BufferedReader in3 = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
this.getClass().getResourceAsStream("list.txt")));

Eclipse-Java: where to put file for Read purpose

I'm programming Java in Eclipse IDE. Here is code I want to read file:
File file = new File("file.txt");
reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
I put file.txt in two place:
1) same folder of this SOURCE file.
2) in bin\...\ (same folder of this CLASS file)
But I allways receive NO FILE FOUND.
Please help me.
thanks :)
If the file ships with your application, it would be better accessed as a resource than as a file. Simply copy it to somewhere in your build path and use Class.getResourceAsStream or ClassLoader.getResourceAsStream. That way you'll also be able to access it if you bundle your app as a jar file.
Currently, you're looking for the file relative to the process's current working directory, which could be entirely unrelated to where the class files are.
if you put the file under sources and inside the package "test" for example, the path is:
./src/test/file.txt
you can use
File file = new File("./src/test/file.txt");
System.out.println(file.exists());
The path ./bin/test/file.txt will work in the second case and is more suitable for a normal java project

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