Open file; try filesystem first, then JARs - java

I'm trying to have my application load a resource (binary file) transparently:
If the file exists under the current directory, open it.
If not, try looking in the current JAR file if applicable.
If not, try looking in other JAR files. (This is optional and I don't mind explicitly specifying which JAR files.)
So far I know of File which opens a local file and ClassLoader which has getResource* for JAR contents.
Is there a class which combines the two? If not, how should I go about writing it myself? Should I write a ClassLoader which also checks the local filesystem? Using File? (I'm very unfamiliar with Java and don't even know what's a good type to return. InputStream?)
Thanks
P.S. By "file" I mean "path", e.g. "data/texture1.png".

Doing #1 and #3 is pretty easy. Doing #2 (just looking in the current JAR only) is much harder as it requires you figuring out what JAR you
If you wanted to check the filesystem first, otherwise load from classpath, it would be something like:
public java.io.InputStream loadByName(String name) {
java.io.File f = new java.io.File(name);
if (f.isFile()) {
return new FileInputStream(f);
} else {
return getClass().getResource(name);
}
}
If you want to prefer loading from the same JAR file first, you will need to figure out where it is. Check out Determine which JAR file a class is from for more info on figuring out the JAR file you want to load the resource from.

A URLClassLoader should be able to load both and try the file path first if the file path is on the class path ahead of the jar.
Regarding your comments:
I know that relative jar URLs don't
work. That's why the Spring guys came
up with the Resource abstraction.
Read about it here.
You might want to check the answers
to this Question: Loading a file
relative to the executing jar
file. The problem is similar to
yours.

Current jar file and current directory are not concepts in the JVM like they are when you're running a shell script. You would need to specify a directory to be used for loading the files that you're interested in, such as with a system property while executing the JVM:
java -Ddirectory.to.scan=/home/aib
Then retrieve this property:
String dir = System.getProperty("directory.to.scan");
Now when talking about JAR files, all JAR files specified explicitly on the classpath when you start the JVM are loaded by the ClassLoader. You can get the ClassLoader of a specific class by:
InputStream is = <Your class>.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("binary file");
Note that any jar file loaded by the current class loader is searched.

Related

Jar is not loading resources file

I have a project with a folder "src/main/resources" where inside there is the hibernate configuration file, I load it using this line of code
HibernateUtil.class.getResource("/hibernate.cgf.xml").getPath()
From inside the IDE it is working well, but when I create the jar it doesn't file the file.
How can I load it properly in the jar file too?
Thanks
Could you please try this:
ClassLoader classLoader = getClass().getClassLoader();
File file = new File(classLoader.getResource("fileName").getFile());
I cannot say for ceratin that this is the issue without knowing how exactly you use the path extracted by:
HibernateUtil.class.getResource("/hibernate.cgf.xml").getPath()
but I can tell you this:
Run from an IDE the above line of code will return:
/path/to/project/src/main/resources/hibernate.cgf.xml
which is a valid filesystem path. You can then use this path to, for example, create an instance of File class and then use that instance to read the file contents.
However the same line of code run from inside a jar file will return:
file:/path/to/jar/jar_name.jar!/hibernate.cgf.xml
which is not a valid filesystem path. If you create an instance of File class using this path and then try to read the contents of the file you'll get an exception: java.io.FileNotFoundExeption
To read the contents of the file from inside of a jar you should use method Class.getResourceAsStream(String), which will return an instance of class sun.net.www.protocol.jar.JarURLConnection.JarURLInputStream (or equivalent in non-Oracle or non-OpenJDK Java). You can then use this object to read the contents of the file. For example:
InputStream inputStream = HibernateUtil.class.getResourceAsStream("/hibernate.cgf.xml");
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(inputStream).useDelimiter("\\A");
String fileContents = scanner.hasNext() ? sscanner.next() : "";
Most likely, the file is absent from the jar you create. There's too little information in your question, but I will try a guess:
Your hibernate.cgf.xml resides in the same directory as the Java sourcefles, and you are using a build tool (be it IDE, maven, gradle or an ant script) that expects resources to be stored in a separate directory.
It's easy to check: try to unzip your jar and see if the file is there (use any tool, you can just change the extension from .jar to .zip). I think you will see the file is absent.
Then come back with a question: "how to pack my non-java resources into a jar, using XXX", where XXX will be the name of the techology you are using for building the jar.
Most probably the slash in "/hibernate.cgf.xml" is not needed, if the hibernate.cgf.xml is in the same package as you class HibernateUtil.
You can access the file actually also via the classloader using the full path. Yet you never add to it the first slash.
Here is some code demonstrating how you can access the file using different methods:
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Accessing via class
System.out.println(SimpleTests.class.getResource("hibernate.cgf.xml").getPath());
// Accessing via classloader from the current thread
String path = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader()
.getResource("simple/hibernate.cgf.xml").getPath();
System.out.println(path);
// Accessing via classloader used by the current class
System.out.println(SimpleTests.class.getClassLoader().getResource("simple/hibernate.cgf.xml").getPath());
}
In the example above the package 'simple' should be replaced by the package where your hibernate.cgf.xml is. But you should never have the slash at the beginning of the package declaration.

how to find a local resource from dependent jar?

I have written a code that is packed to 1.jar
with this code:
return isProd? "/etc/waze/automation/devices.json":
DeviceRepositoryFromJsonFile.class.getClassLoader().getResource("devices.json").getPath().toString();
devices.json is here:
I have another project that depends on 1.jar
however the classLoader doesn't find the local devices.json file but rather one packed in the jar
anyhow it shows the file doesn't exist.
How can I fix this? just use a absolute path anyhow?
If as in your screenshot the devices.json locate in the src/main/resources and the package have successfully treat that as the package path and put in the jar file root directory, then you can just find the file via:
DeviceRepositoryFromJsonFile.class.getResource("/devices.json");
Note the "/" slash is important to indicate that to search from the root of the classpath.
It does not answer your question directly, but it may solve your problems faster.
As far as I can see you try to detect the absolute path to json file and pass it to another method so this file could be processed. Instead, it could be done simpler:
public byte[] getDevicesJsonBytes() {
return isProd
? IOUtils.toByteArray(ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_PROD_FILE)
: IOUtils.toByteArray(DeviceRepositoryFromJsonFile.class.getResourceAsStream(RESOURCE_CLASSPATH);
}
The common way to read classpath resources it to use getResourceAsStream on class or classLoader instance. Also, many frameworks have their own resources abstractions, but I guess you don't need them now.

Using getResourceAsStream is not working in Java [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to read text file from classpath in Java?
(17 answers)
Closed 7 years ago.
I have a very simple method which uses the getclass().getResourceAsStream() method to read a file. However it always returns null and I can't figure out what is wrong. Here is my piece of code.
InputStream sw = getClass().getResourceAsStream("/filename.txt");
BufferedReader bf = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(sw));
sw always remain null. the file filename.txt exist in the root directory of my project.
EDIT:
I found the reason. I realized that I was running my project from Eclipse and the project was not part of the classpath on my PC. However if I package my program as a jar file and then run it, the files in the jar file are considered as resources and can be read using the getResourceAsStream() method.
The method Class.getResourceAsStream() looks for the designated resource within the Java class path, not based on the project root.
The project root usually is not part of the classpath. Instead, you should have a src folder (or a similar name), which contains the Java files and may also contain your text file. Or, if you use Maven, you have folders src/main/java and src/main/resources, which are classpath roots. In this case, the text file should reside in the resources folder.
If your project gets packaged into a .jar file, all its resources are packaged in the .jar file along with the .class files, and will be found by Class.getResourceAsStream().
Root of your project is not always the root of the path from the ClassLoader point of view.
Easiest way to find out where it is trying to load the resource from:
System.out.println(MyClass.class.getResource("/").getPath());
And after that you may be able to easily find out the part of the project or run configuration that causes the difference between your assumption and the reality about the right placement of the file.
getResourceAsStream() reads a resource file, ie a file into .jar file (or resource directory), not a regular file in working directory on disk. Use FileReader to read a file from disk
user likewise,
InputStream sw = this.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("filename.txt");
Note : filename.txt file should be present on classpath.
Just to be complete, here's a simple test that does print out the absolute path of a resource. You can use this inside any class to find the location of that class on your hard drive, in case it isn't obvious what your build system is doing. Just substitute the name ErrorTest for the class you are checking.
public class ErrorTest
{
public static void main(String[] args )
{
final String className = ErrorTest.class.getSimpleName().replace( '.', '/').concat(".class");
System.out.println(ErrorTest.class.getResource(className).getPath() );
}
}
Output of this program:
run:
/C:/Users/Brenden/Google%20Drive/proj/tempj8/build/classes/quicktest/ErrorTest.class
BUILD SUCCESSFUL (total time: 0 seconds)

Resource loading in Java not working as it should

This is the well known problem of loading resources from a jar file. This is not the first time I've tried to do this, but now it doesn't work the way I expect it to.
Normally I try to load the Resources with this.getClass.getResource("foo.png"), or getResourceAsStream()and it works. Now however it does not. The Resource is always null.
If I let System.out.println(this.getClass.getResource("")) print me the path (from eclipse) it shows /path/to/eclipseproject/package/structure/. Running this from a jar it just shows rsrc:package/structure
If I recall correctly this should print the path to the jar. Furthermore I thought this would print the package structure in both cases. Am I doing something wrong?
Here is the thing...
When Extracting the file from the Jar use:
this.getClass.getResource("/foo.png")
When running from a runnable Jar use, to reference an external file in the Jar folder path:
this.getClass.getResource("foo.png")
// When running this from Eclipse, it would refer to files in project root!
I have a code in the lower level determining where I'm running from to determine the correct path.
Doe this get the path you need?
this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("<your class name>.class").getPath();
See also this question for more on this issue.
Unless you prepend the path to the resources with '/', Class.getResource() will search for the resource in class package. E.g.: tld.domain.Foo.class.getResource("Bar.txt") will search for tld/domain/Bar.txt
Check the URLClassLoader for all the gory details, but it really depends on whether you are trying to access a ressource in the jar,
using a class loaded inside the same jar, in this case your file 'root' is the root of the jar
using a class loaded outside the jar (your eclipse case) where the root is your 'working directory'
To access resources inside a jar from outside, you should use something like
URL url = new URL( "jar", "", "file:" + jar.getCanonicalPath( ) + "!/" + localPathResource );
url.openStream(...)
This answer provides an explanation of how to load class resources from JAR files, even when the class is not in the JAR file and not in the Class-Path specified in the JAR file's manifest. There are also links to code.

Absolute Path of Project's folder in Java

Lots of confusion in this topic. Several Questions have been asked. Things still seem unclear.
ClassLoader, Absolute File Paths etc etc
Suppose I have a project directory structure as,
MyProject--
--dist
--lib
--src
--test
I have a resource say "txtfile.txt" in "lib/txt" directory. I want to access it in a system independent way. I need the absolute path of the project.
So I can code the path as abspath+"/lib/Dictionary/txtfile.txt"
Suppose I do this
java.io.File file = new java.io.File(""); //Dummy file
String abspath=file.getAbsolutePath();
I get the current working directory which is not necessarily project root.
Suppose I execute the final 'prj.jar' from the 'dist' folder which also contains "lib/txt/txtfile.txt" directory structure and resource,It should work here too. I should absolute path of dist folder.
Hope the problem is clear.
You should really be using getResource() or getResourceAsStream() using your class loader for this sort of thing. In particular, these methods use your ClassLoader to determine the search context for resources within your project.
Specify something like getClass().getResource("lib/txtfile.txt") in order to pick up the text file.
To clarify: instead of thinking about how to get the path of the resource you ought to be thinking about getting the resource -- in this case a file in a directory somewhere (possibly inside your JAR). It's not necessary to know some absolute path in this case, only some URL to get at the file, and the ClassLoader will return this URL for you. If you want to open a stream to the file you can do this directly without messing around with a URL using getResourceAsStream.
The resources you're trying to access through the ClassLoader need to be on the Class-Path (configured in the Manifest of your JAR file). This is critical! The ClassLoader uses the Class-Path to find the resources, so if you don't provide enough context in the Class-Path it won't be able to find anything. If you add . the ClassLoader should resolve anything inside or outside of the JAR depending on how you refer to the resource, though you can certainly be more specific.
Referring to the resource prefixed with a . will cause the ClassLoader to also look for files outside of the JAR, while not prefixing the resource path with a period will direct the ClassLoader to look only inside the JAR file.
That means if you have some file inside the JAR in a directory lib with name foo.txt and you want to get the resource then you'd run getResource("lib/foo.txt");
If the same resource were outside the JAR you'd run getResource("./lib/foo.txt");
First, make sure the lib directory is in your classpath. You can do this by adding the command line parameter in your startup script:
$JAVA_HOME/bin/java -classpath .:lib com.example.MyMainClass
save this as MyProject/start.sh or any os dependent script.
Then you can access the textfile.txt (as rightly mentioned by Mark) as:
// if you want this as a File
URL res = getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("text/textfile.txt");
File f = new File(res.getFile());
// As InputStream
InputStream in = getClass().getClassLoader()
.getResourceAsStream("text/textfile.txt");
#Mark is correct. That is by far the simplest and most robust approach.
However, if you really have to have a File, then your best bet is to try the following:
turn the contents of the System property "java.class.path" into a list of pathnames,
identify the JAR pathname in the list based on its filename,
figure out what "../.." is relative to the JAR pathname to give you the "project" directory, and
build your target path relative to the project directory.
Another alternative is to embed the project directory name in a wrapper script and set it as a system property using a -D option. It is also possible to have a wrapper script figure out its own absolute pathname; e.g. using whence.

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