Different ways of loading a file as an InputStream

Question

What\'s the difference between:

InputStream is = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(fileName)

and

InputSt         


        

Answer 1

Plain old Java on plain old Java 7 and no other dependencies demonstrates the difference...

I put file.txt in c:\temp\ and I put c:\temp\ on the classpath.

There is only one case where there is a difference between the two call.

class J {

 public static void main(String[] a) {
    // as "absolute"

    // ok   
    System.err.println(J.class.getResourceAsStream("/file.txt") != null); 

    // pop            
    System.err.println(J.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("/file.txt") != null); 

    // as relative

    // ok
    System.err.println(J.class.getResourceAsStream("./file.txt") != null); 

    // ok
    System.err.println(J.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("./file.txt") != null); 

    // no path

    // ok
    System.err.println(J.class.getResourceAsStream("file.txt") != null); 

   // ok
   System.err.println(J.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("file.txt") != null); 
  }
}