getResourceAsStream returns null

Question

I\'m loading a text file from within a package in a compiled JAR of my Java project. The relevant directory structure is as follows:

/src/initialization/Life         


        

Answer 1

Make sure your resource directory (e.g. "src") is in your classpath (make sure it's a source directory in your build path in eclipse).

Make sure clazz is loaded from the main classloader.

Then, to load src/initialization/Lifepaths.txt, use

clazz.getResourceAsStream("/initialization/Lifepaths.txt");

Why: clazz.getResourcesAsStream(foo) looks up foo from within the classpath of clazz, relative to the directory clazz lives in. The leading "/" makes it load from the root of any directory in the classpath of clazz.

Unless you're in a container of some kind, like Tomcat, or are doing something with ClassLoaders directly, you can just treat your eclipse/command line classpath as the only classloader classpath.