Question

I have a form with that code:

public Form() 
{
    initComponents();
    try 
    {
        File file= new File("avatar.jpg");
        BufferedImage image= ImageIO.read(file);
    } 
    catch (IOException ex) 
    {
        System.out.println("Failed to load image");
    }
}

The problem is that the code always throws the IOException and enters in the catch block.
So the file isn’t read.
I have created the project with Netbeans 7.2, and the directory looks like this:

What’s the problem? Maybe the file shouldn’t be there but in the father directory? Or what?

Answer 1

Is your image being packaged within your jar? to find this out, extract you jar file like you would an ordinary zip file and check if the image is anywhere there (normally located by jarname\packagename\filename. If so then you’ll need to extract your image as a resource using getResourceAsStream().

It would be something like:

public class Test {
  private static final String absName = "/yourpackage/yourimage.jpg";

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Class c=null;
    try {
      c = Class.forName("yourpackage.Test");//pkg is the package name in which the resource lies
    } catch (Exception ex) {
      // This should not happen.
    }
    InputStream s = c.getResourceAsStream(absName);
    // do something with it.
  }

    public InputStream getResourceAsStream(String name) {
      name = resolveName(name);
      ClassLoader cl = getClassLoader();
      if (cl==null) {
        return ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream(name); // A system class.
      }
      return cl.getResourceAsStream(name);
    }

    public java.net.URL getResource(String name) {
      name = resolveName(name);
      ClassLoader cl = getClassLoader();
      if (cl==null) {
        return ClassLoader.getSystemResource(name);  // A system class.
      }
      return cl.getResource(name);
    }

    private String resolveName(String name) {
      if (name == null) {
        return name;
      }
      if (!name.startsWith("/")) {
        Class c = this;
        while (c.isArray()) {
          c = c.getComponentType();
        }
        String baseName = c.getName();
        int index = baseName.lastIndexOf('.');
        if (index != -1) {
          name = baseName.substring(0, index).replace('.', '/') + "/" + name;
        }
      } else {
        name = name.substring(1);
      }
      return name;
    }
}

Reference:

• Accessing Resources