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How to use URLClassloader in an auto-update jar launcher?

I've come across many posts about these two topics: Auto-Updating and URLClassloaders. I'll start with the auto updating goal. I found this post here that talks about a 2 jar system. One jar that launches the main app jar: From Stephen C:
The launcher could be a Java application that creates a classloader for the new JAR, loads an entrypoint class and calls some method on it. If you do it this way, you have to watch for classloader storage leaks, but that's not difficult. (You just need to make sure that no objects with classes loaded from the JAR are reachable after you relaunch.)
This is the approach I'm taking, but I'm open to other ideas if they prove easier and/or more reliable. The Coordinator has posted some pretty cool launcher code to which I plan on incorporating some of this reload type code in my launcher, but first I need to get it to work.
My issue is that my main app jar has many other dependencies, and I cannot get some of those classes to load despite the fact that all the jars have been added to the URL's array. This brings up the second topic URLClassloader.
Side Note for future readers: When passing a URL to the URLClassloader that is a directory, a helpful note that would have saved me (an embarrassingly large) amount of time is that the contents of the directory must be .class files! I was originally pointing to my dependent jar directory, no good.
Context for the code below, my launcher jar resides in the same directory as my app jar, which is why I'm using user.dir. I will probably change this, but for now the code works and gets far enough into my app's code to request a connection to a sqlite database before failing.
Launcher:
public class Launcher {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
String userdir = System.getProperty("user.dir");
File parentDir = new File(userdir);
ArrayList<URL> urls = getJarURLs(parentDir);
URL[] jarURLs = new URL[urls.size()];
int index = 0;
for (URL u : urls) {
System.out.println(u.toString());
jarURLs[index] = u;
index ++;
}
URLClassLoader urlCL = new URLClassLoader(jarURLs);
Class<?> c = urlCL.loadClass("main.AppStart");
Object [] args2 = new Object[] {new String[] {}};
c.getMethod("main", String[].class).invoke(null, args2);
urlCL.close();
} catch (Exception e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static ArrayList<URL> getJarURLs(File parentDir) throws MalformedURLException {
ArrayList<URL> list = new ArrayList<>();
for (File f : parentDir.listFiles()) {
if (f.isDirectory()) {
list.addAll(getJarURLs(f));
} else {
String name = f.getName();
if (name.endsWith(".jar")) {
list.add(f.toURI().toURL());
}
}
}
return list;
}
}
Here's an example of the URL output added to the array:
file:/C:/my/path/to/dependent/jars/sqlite-jdbc-3.32.3.2.jar
file:/C:/my/path/to/main/app.jar
file: ... [10 more]
The URLClassloader seems to work well enough to load my main method in app.jar. The main executes a some startup type stuff, before attempting to load a login screen. When the request is made to get the user info database, my message screen loads and displays (<-this is important for later)
the stacktrace containing:
java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver found for jdbc:sqlite:C:\...\users.db
I understand that this is because that jar is not on the class path, but it's loaded via the class loader, so why can't it find the classes from the jar? From this post JamesB suggested adding Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC"); before the connection request. I rebuilt the app jar with this line of code and it worked!
The weird thing that happened next, is that my message screen class can no longer be found even though earlier it loaded and displayed correctly. The message screen is a class inside my main app.jar and not in a dependent jar, which is why I'm baffled. Am I going to have to add Class.forName before every instance of any of my classes? That seems rude..
So what could I be doing wrong with the class loader? Why does it load some classes and not others despite that fact that all the jars have been added to the URL array?
Some other relative info: My app works perfectly as intended when launched from windows command line when the classpath is specified: java -cp "main-app.jar;my/dependent/jar/directory/*" main.AppStart. It's only when I try launching the app via this classloader that I have these issues.
By the way, is this java command universal? Will it work on all operating systems with java installed? If so, could I not just scrap this launcher, and use a process builder to execute the above command? Bonus points for someone who can tell me how to execute the command from a jre packaged with my app, as that's what I plan on doing so the user does not have to download Java.

EDIT
I figured out one of the answers to one of the questions below. Turns out, I didn't need to do any of the code below. My main method loads a login screen but after it's loaded it returns back to the AppLauncher code, thus closing the URLClassLoader! Of course, at that point any requested class will not be found as the loader has been closed! What an oof! Hopefully I will save someone a headache in the future...
Original
Well, after more time, effort, research, and effective use of Eclipse's debugging tool, I was able to figure out what I needed to do to resolve my issues.
So the first issue was my JDBC driver was never registered when passing the jars to the URLClassloader. This is the part I sorta don't understand, so advisement would be welcomed, but there is a static block in the JDBC class that registers the driver so it can be used by DriverManager see code below. Loading the class is what executes that static block, hence why calling Class.forName works.
static {
try {
DriverManager.registerDriver(new JDBC());
} catch (SQLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
What I don't understand, is how class loading works if jars are specified via the class path. The URLClassLoader doesn't load any of those classes until they are called, and I never directly work with the JDBC class, thus no suitable driver exception, but are all the classes specified via the classpath loaded initially? Seems that way for static blocks to execute.
Anyhow, to resolve my other issue with some of my app's classes not being found I had to implement my own classloader. I get what I did and how it works well, but still don't understand why I had to do it. All of my jars were loaded to the original URLClassloader so if I could find them and the files within, why couldn't it do it?
Basically, I had to override the findClass and findResource methods to return jarEntry information that I had to store. I hope this code helps someone!
public class SBURLClassLoader extends URLClassLoader {
private HashMap<String, Storage> map;
public SBURLClassLoader(URL[] urls) {
super(urls);
map = new HashMap<>();
try {
storeClasses(urls);
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
private void storeClasses(URL[] urls) throws ClassNotFoundException {
for (URL u : urls) {
try {
JarFile jarFile = new JarFile(new File(u.getFile()));
Enumeration<JarEntry> e = jarFile.entries();
while (e.hasMoreElements()) {
JarEntry jar = e.nextElement();
String entryName = jar.getName();
if (jar.isDirectory()) continue;
if (!entryName.endsWith(".class")) {
//still need to store these non-class files as resources
//let code continue to store entry un-altered
} else {
entryName = entryName.replace(".class", "");
entryName = entryName.replace("/", ".");
}
map.put(entryName, new Storage(jarFile, jar));
System.out.println(entryName);
}
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
#Override
protected Class<?> findClass(String name) throws ClassNotFoundException {
Class<?> c = null;
try {
c = super.findClass(name);
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
Storage s = map.get(name);
try {
InputStream in = s.jf.getInputStream(s.je);
int len = in.available();
c = defineClass(name, in.readAllBytes(), 0, len);
resolveClass(c);
} catch (IOException e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
}
if (c == null) throw e;
}
return c;
}
#Override
public URL findResource(String name) {
URL url = super.findResource(name);
if (url == null) {
Storage s = map.get(name);
if (s != null) {
try {
url = new URL("jar:"+s.base.toString() + "!/" + name);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
return url;
}
private class Storage {
public JarFile jf;
public JarEntry je;
public URL base;
public Storage(JarFile jf, JarEntry je) {
this.jf = jf;
this.je = je;
try {
base = Path.of(jf.getName()).toUri().toURL();
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}

Access public assets with Java in Play Framework

Is it possible to access Assets inside the Java code in Play Framework? How?
We access assets from the scala HTML templates this way:
<img src="#routes.Assets.versioned("images/myimage.png")" width="800" />
But I could not find any documentation nor code example to do it from inside the Java code. I just found a controllers.Assets class but it is unclear how to use it. If this is the class that has to be used, should it maybe be injected?

I finally found a way to access the public folder even from a production mode application.
In order to be accessible/copied in the distributed version, public folder need to be mapped that way in build.sbt:
import NativePackagerHelper._
mappings in Universal ++= directory("public")
The files are then accessible in the public folder in the distributed app in production form the Java code:
private static final String PUBLIC_IMAGE_DIRECTORY_RELATIVE_PATH = "public/images/";
static File getImageAsset(String relativePath) throws ResourceNotFoundException {
final String path = PUBLIC_IMAGE_DIRECTORY_RELATIVE_PATH + relativePath;
final File file = new File(path);
if (!file.exists()) {
throw new ResourceNotFoundException(String.format("Asset %s not found", path));
}
return file;
}
This post put me on the right way to find the solution: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/play-framework/sVDoEtAzP-U

The assets normally are in the "public" folder, and I don't know how you want to use your image so I have used ImageIO .
File file = new File("./public/images/nice.png");
boolean exists = file.exists();
String absolutePath = file.getAbsolutePath();
try {
ImageInputStream input = ImageIO.read(file); //Use it
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("EX = "+exists+" - "+absolutePath);

File not reading in selenium - maven framewaork

I tried to create a quick framework. in that I created below-mentioned classes:
Config file(All browsers path)
configDataProvider java class(reads the above file)
BrowserFactory class(has firefox browser object)
configDataProviderTest class(access data from dconfigDataProvider class)
now its not reading the paths mentioned in config.properties file.
I have provided all correct path and attached screenshots:

Looks like a problem is at your ConfigDataProvider class.
Firstly, you using Maven for building your project. Maven has defined project structure for code sources and for resources:
/src/main/java
/src/main/resorces
Thus, much better to put your .properties file there.
Second, you don't need to set the full path to your config file.
Relative path will be just enough. Something like below:
public class PropertiesFileHandler {
private static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(PropertiesFileHandler.class);
public static final String CONFIG_PROPERTIES = "src/main/resources/config.properties";
public static final String KEY = "browser.type";
public static BrowserType readBrowserType() {
BrowserType browserType = null;
Properties properties = new Properties();
try (InputStream inputStream = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(CONFIG_PROPERTIES))) {
properties.load(inputStream);
browserType = Enum.valueOf(BrowserType.class, properties.getProperty(KEY));
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
log.error("Properties file wasn't found - " + e);
} catch (IOException e) {
log.error("Problem with reading properties file - " + e);
}
return browserType;
}
}
Lastly, if you are building framework you don't need to put everything under src/main/test. This path specifies tests with future possibilities to be executed with maven default lifecycle - mvn test.
The core of your framework can look like:

Two things which I noticed:
Don't give path in your properties path within ""
all the path seperators should be replaced with double backward slash \\ or single forward slash /

How to load external properties file with Java without rebuilding the Jar?

I use gradle which structures projects in maven style so I have the following
src/main/java/Hello.java and src/main/resources/test.properties
My Hello.java look like this
public class Hello {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Properties configProperties = new Properties();
ClassLoader classLoader = Hello.class.getClassLoader();
try {
configProperties.load(classLoader.getResourceAsStream("test.properties"));
System.out.println(configProperties.getProperty("first") + " " + configProperties.getProperty("last"));
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
This works fine. however I want to be able to point to .properties file outside of my project and I want to it to be flexible enough that I can point to any location without rebuilding the jar every time. Is there a way to this without using a File API and passing file path as an argument to the main method?

You can try this one, which will first try to load properties file from project home directory so that you don't have to rebuild jar, if not found then will load from classpath
public class Hello {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String configPath = "test.properties";
if (args.length > 0) {
configPath = args[0];
} else if (System.getenv("CONFIG_TEST") != null) {
configPath = System.getenv("CONFIG_TEST");
}
File file = new File(configPath);
try (InputStream input = file.exists() ? new FileInputStream(file) : Hello.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(configPath)) {
Properties configProperties = new Properties();
configProperties.load(input);
System.out.println(configProperties.getProperty("first") + " " + configProperties.getProperty("last"));
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
You can send the properties file path as argument or set the path to an environment variable name CONFIG_TEST

Archaius may be complete overkill for such a simple problem, but it is a great way to manage external properties. It is a library for handling configuration: hierarchies of configuration, configuration from property files, configuration from databases, configuration from user defined sources. It may seem complicated, but you will never have to worry about hand-rolling a half-broken solution to configuration again. The Getting Started page has a section on using a local file as the configuration source.

How do you access .properties files inside an AppEngine app?

I've got an AppEngine app with two different instances, one for prod and one for staging. Accordingly, I'd like to configure the staging instance slightly differently, since it'll be used for testing. Disabling emails, talking to a different test backend for data, that kind of thing.
My first intuition was to use a .properties file, but I can't seem to get it to work. I'm using Gradle as a build system, so the file is saved in src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/staging.properties (and a matching production.properties next to it). I'm trying to access it like so:
public class Config {
private static Config sInstance = null;
private Properties mProperties;
public static Config getInstance() {
if (sInstance == null) {
sInstance = new Config();
}
return sInstance;
}
private Config() {
// Select properties filename.
String filename;
if (!STAGING) { // PRODUCTION SETTINGS
filename = "/WEB-INF/production.properties";
} else { // DEBUG SETTINGS
filename = "/WEB-INF/staging.properties";
}
// Get handle to file.
InputStream stream = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(filename);
if (stream == null) {
// --> Crashes here. <--
throw new ExceptionInInitializerError("Unable to open settings file: " + filename);
}
// Parse.
mProperties = new Properties();
try {
mProperties.load(stream);
} catch (IOException e) {
throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(e);
}
}
The problem is that getResourceAsStream() is always returning null. I checked the build/exploded-app directory, and the .properties file shows up there. I also checked the .war file, and found the .properties file there as well.
I've also tried moving the file into /WEB-INF/classes, but that didn't make a difference either.
What am I missing here?

Try
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filename));
or
InputStream stream = this.getClass().getResourceAsStream(filename);