Question

Okay, so this is the line that’s returning null. What am I doing wrong while creating this FileInputStream?

FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(new File(getClass().getResource("data/levellocks.lv").toURI()));

Answer 1

Unless you really need a file input stream, you line can be simplified to:

InputStream in = getClass().getResourceAsStream("data/levellocks.lv");

Class.getResource() and Class.getResourceAsStream are relative to the package. To get the file relative to the root of the classpath, you can call those methods on the classloader:

InputStream in = getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("data/levellocks.lv");

Did you make sure the file is in your binary folder, next to the .class files? Not just in your source folder next to the .java files?