Question

I have a use case where I need to export this specific piece of code as a java library (which will be a JAR eventually) but the problem is that it needs to use some piece of information stored in physical files on the file system.

I have 2 questions here:

1) Where should I put these files on the filesystem (One option that I could think of was in the resources directory of the Java module containing the library: Have a doubt though that the resources directory also gets compiled into the jar?)

2) When I am using this library from an external Java application, how would the library be able to locate the files? Would they still be in the classpath?

Answer 1

I found a relevant answer as a part of another question : How to load a folder from a .jar?

I am able to successfully retrieve the files using the following code:

   /**
   * List directory contents for a resource folder. Not recursive.
   * This is basically a brute-force implementation.
   * Works for regular files and also JARs.
   * 
   * @author Greg Briggs
   * @param clazz Any java class that lives in the same place as the resources you want.
   * @param path Should end with "/", but not start with one.
   * @return Just the name of each member item, not the full paths.
   * @throws URISyntaxException 
   * @throws IOException 
   */
  String[] getResourceListing(Class clazz, String path) throws URISyntaxException, IOException {
      URL dirURL = clazz.getClassLoader().getResource(path);
      if (dirURL != null && dirURL.getProtocol().equals("file")) {
        /* A file path: easy enough */
        return new File(dirURL.toURI()).list();
      } 

      if (dirURL == null) {
        /* 
         * In case of a jar file, we can't actually find a directory.
         * Have to assume the same jar as clazz.
         */
        String me = clazz.getName().replace(".", "/")+".class";
        dirURL = clazz.getClassLoader().getResource(me);
      }

      if (dirURL.getProtocol().equals("jar")) {
        /* A JAR path */
        String jarPath = dirURL.getPath().substring(5, dirURL.getPath().indexOf("!")); //strip out only the JAR file
        JarFile jar = new JarFile(URLDecoder.decode(jarPath, "UTF-8"));
        Enumeration<JarEntry> entries = jar.entries(); //gives ALL entries in jar
        Set<String> result = new HashSet<String>(); //avoid duplicates in case it is a subdirectory
        while(entries.hasMoreElements()) {
          String name = entries.nextElement().getName();
          if (name.startsWith(path)) { //filter according to the path
            String entry = name.substring(path.length());
            int checkSubdir = entry.indexOf("/");
            if (checkSubdir >= 0) {
              // if it is a subdirectory, we just return the directory name
              entry = entry.substring(0, checkSubdir);
            }
            result.add(entry);
          }
        }
        return result.toArray(new String[result.size()]);
      } 

      throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Cannot list files for URL "+dirURL);
  }