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Access file without knowing absolute path, only knowing file name

I'm trying to use a file in my code but I don't want to have specify the absolute file path, only the file name, for example "fileName.txt".
I want to do this so I have the ability to use this code on different laptops where the file may be stored in different folders.
The code below is what I'm using at the moment but I receive a NoSuchFileException when I ran it.
FileSystem fs FileSystems.getDefault();
Path fileIn = Paths.get("fileName.txt");
Any ideas how to overcome this problem so I can find the file without knowing its absolute path?

Ideas on how to find the file without knowing its absolute path:
Instruct the user of the app to place the file in the working directory.
Instruct the user of the app to give the path to the file as a program argument, then change the program to use the argument.
Have the program read a configuration file, found using options 1 or 2, then instruct the user of the app to give the path to the file in the configuration file.
Prompt the user for the file name.
(Not recommended) Scan the entire file system for the file, making sure there is only one file with the given name. Optional: If more than one file is found, prompt the user for which file to use.

if you don't ask the user for the complete path, and you don't have a specific folder that it must be in, then your only choice is to search for it.
Start with a rootmost path. Learn to use the File class. Then search all the children. This implementation only returned the first file found with that name.
public File findFile(File folder, String fileName) {
File fullPath = new File(folder,fileName);
if (fullPath.exists()) {
return fullPath;
}
for (File child : folder.listFiles()) {
if (child.isDirectory()) {
File possible = findFile(child,fileName);
if (possible!=null) {
return possible;
}
}
}
return null;
}
Then start this by calling either the root of the file system, or the configured rootmost path that you want to search
File userFile = findFile( new File("/"), fileName );
the best option, however, is to make the user input the entire path. There are nice file system browsing tools for most environments that will do this for the user.

windows - User folder with special character -> class.getResource returns null [duplicate]

The getResourceAsStream-method returns null whenever running the executable jar in a directory which ends with a exclamation mark.
For the following example, I have a Eclipse project the following directory structure:
src\ (Source Folder)
main\ (Package)
Main.java
res\ (Source Folder)
images\
Logo.png
I'm reading the Logo.png as follows:
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
try (InputStream is = Main.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("images/Logo.png")) {
Image image = ImageIO.read(is);
System.out.println(image);
}
}
See the attachment for 2 test cases. First, the executable jar is started from the directory "D:\test123!##" without any problems. Secondly, the executable jar is started from the directory "D:\test123!##!!!", with problems.
Are directories ending with an exclamation mark not supported? Is the code wrong?
Thanks in advance.

Probably because of this bug or any of the many similar bugs in the Java bug database:
http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=4523159
The reason is that "!/" in a jar URL is interpreted as the separator between the JAR file name and the path within the JAR itself. If a directory name ends with !, the "!/" character sequence at the end of the directory is incorrectly interpreted. In your case, you are actually trying to access a resource with the following URL:
jar:file:///d:/test1231##!!!/test.jar!/images/Logo.png
The bug has been open for almost 12 years and is not likely to be fixed. Actually I don't know how it can be fixed without breaking other things. The problem is the design decision to use ! as a character with a special meaning (separator) in the URL scheme for JAR files:
jar:<URL for JAR file>!/<path within the JAR file>
Since the exclamation mark is an allowed character in URLs, it may occur both in the URL to the JAR file itself, as well as in the path within the JAR file, making it impossible in some cases to find the actual "!/" separator.

A simple work around for Windows is to use "\" instead of "/" in the path. That would mean the "!/" character sequence is found after the full path. For instance:
new URL("jar:file:\\d:\\test1231##!!!\\test.jar!/images/Logo.png");
My Code:
File jar = new File(jarPath + "/" + jarName);
URL url = new URL("jar:" + jar.toURI() + "!" + dataFilePath);
InputStream stream = null;
try {
stream = url.openStream();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
// Windows fix
URL urlFix = new URL("jar:" + jar.toURI().toString().replace('/', '\\')
+ "!" + dataFilePath);
stream = urlFix.openStream();
}
I use toURI() because it handles things like spaces.
Fixes:
The fix itself would be for Java to check if the file exists and if not continue to the next separator (the "!/" part of the url) until the separators are exhausted, then throw the exception. So it would see that "d:\test1231##!!" throws a java.io.FileNotFoundException and would then try "d:\test1231##!!!\test.jar" which does exist. This way it does not matter if there are "!" in the file path or in the jar's files.
Alternatively the "!/" can be switched to something else that is an illegal file name or to something specific (like "jarpath:").
Alternatively make the jar's file path use another parameter.
Note:
It may be possible to override something, swap a handler, or change the code to open the file first then look inside the jar file later but I have not looked.

Inputting file name through main function argument (args[0])

EDIT: to run my code i am using "java filename.java input1.txt" is this correct?
I am creating a program where i have to tokenize a string into separate words and that string is in a text file. I have to specify the text file name in the terminal through command line arguments (args[0], etc). I am able to scan and print the content of the text file if i specify through paths but when i try to do it using args[0] it doesn't seem to work. I am using net beans. I will attach my section of code here:
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
File f = new File(args[0]);
//using this commented out section using paths works File f = new
//File("NetBeansProjects/SentenceUtils/src/input1.txt");
Scanner input = new Scanner(new FileInputStream(f));
while(input.hasNext()) {
String s = input.next();
System.out.println(s);
}
} catch(FileNotFoundException fnfe) {
System.out.println("File not found");
}
SentenceUtils s = new SentenceUtils();
}

java filename.java input1.txt
is not correct for running a java program, you need to compile the *.java file to get a *.class file which you can then run like:
java filename input1.txt
assuming your class is in the default package and you are running the command in the output directory of your compile command, or using the fully qualified class name of the class, i.e. including the package name. For example if your class is in the package foo/bar/baz (sub folders in your source folder) and has the package declaration package foo.bar.baz;, then you need to specify your class like this:
java [-cp your-classpath] foo.bar.baz.filename input1.txt
for input1.txt to be found it has to be in the same directory where you run the command.
your-classpath is a list of directories separated by a system dependent delimiter (; for windows, : for linux, ...) or archives which the java command uses to look up the class to run specified and its dependencies.
NetBeansProjects/SentenceUtils/src/input1.txt is a relative path.
File f = new File("NetBeansProjects/SentenceUtils/src/input1.txt");
if this works then it means that the current working directory (i.e. the directory from which all relative paths are calculated) is the the rectory named NetBeansProjects.
You get FileNotFoundException because your file is expected to be in
NetBeansProjects/input1.txt
To find out which is the current working directory for your running program you can add the following statement:
System.out.println(new File("").getAbsolutePath());
Place input.txt in that directory and it will be found.
Alternatively you can pass the absolute path of your input file. an absolute path is a path that can be used to locate your file from whatever location your program is running from on your local filesystem. For example:
java -cp <your-classpath> <fully-qualified-name-of-class> /home/john/myfiles/myprogects/...../input1.txt
To sum up, what you need to know/do is the following:
the location of your program class and its package (filename)
the location of your input file (input.txt)
pass the correct argument accordingly

How to create executable file in Java using Netbeans

I made a cache simulator program for a homework, I decided to use java. I want to create an executable jar file that will work on any system, but the problem is that my program gathers data from an external text file. How can I include that text file inside the jar so that there won't be any problem when executing file? By the way, I am using NetBeans IDE.

If you don't need to write to the file, copy into the src directory. You will no longer be able to access like a File, but instead will need to use Class#getResource, passing it the path from the top of the source tree to where the file is stored.
For example, if you put it in src/data, then you'd need to use getClass().getResource("/data/..."), passing it what ever name the file is...
Clean and build...

Yes and I said Yes. To really make your jarfiles along with the text files. Please ensure that links to the folder on which the text files is where properly coded and well linked.
The three Examplary Method below should get you working irrespective of any IDEs. Please rate this and give me a shout if you still need further help.......Sectona
Method 1
Step 1:- Locate your folder that contain your java file by using cd command.
Step 2:- Once your enter your folder location then view your java file by dir
command.
Step 3:- Compile your java file using
javac file.java
Step 4:- view class file by type dir command.
Step 5:- Now you want to create a manifest file.
I)Go to folder<br>
II)Right-click->New->Text Document
III)open text document. Type main class name ,
Main-Class: main-class-name
IV)Save this file your wish like MyManifest.txt
Step 6:- To create executable jar file type
jar cfm JarFileName.jar MyManifest.txt JavaFike1.class JavaFile2.class
Step 7:- Now you see the Executable jar file on your folder. Click the file to
Run.
Step 8:- To run this file via command prompt then type
java -jar JarFileName.jar
Step 9:- You done this..........Sectona
Method 2
The basic format of the command for creating a JAR file is:
jar cf jar-file input-file(s)
The options and arguments used in this command are:
The c option indicates that you want to create a JAR file.
The f option indicates that you want the output to go to a file rather than to stdout.
jar-file is the name that you want the resulting JAR file to have. You can use any filename for a JAR file. By convention, JAR filenames are given a .jar extension, though this is not required.
The input-file(s) argument is a space-separated list of one or more files that you want to include in your JAR file. The input-file(s) argument can contain the wildcard * symbol. If any of the "input-files" are directories, the contents of those directories are added to the JAR archive recursively.
Method 3
import java.io.*;
import java.util.jar.*;
public class CreateJar {
public static int buffer = 10240;
protected void createJarArchive(File jarFile, File[] listFiles) {
try {
byte b[] = new byte[buffer];
FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream(jarFile);
JarOutputStream out = new JarOutputStream(fout, new Manifest());
for (int i = 0; i < listFiles.length; i++) {
if (listFiles[i] == null || !listFiles[i].exists()|| listFiles[i].isDirectory())
System.out.println();
JarEntry addFiles = new JarEntry(listFiles[i].getName());
addFiles.setTime(listFiles[i].lastModified());
out.putNextEntry(addFiles);
FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(listFiles[i]);
while (true) {
int len = fin.read(b, 0, b.length);
if (len <= 0)
break;
out.write(b, 0, len);
}
fin.close();
}
out.close();
fout.close();
System.out.println("Jar File is created successfully.");
} catch (Exception ex) {}
}
public static void main(String[]args){
CreateJar jar=new CreateJar();
File folder = new File("C://Answers//Examples.txt");
File[] files = folder.listFiles();
File file=new File("C://Answers//Examples//Examples.jar");
jar.createJarArchive(file, files);
}
}

You can keep any file in classpath and read as class path resource. Sample code is given below.
InputStream in = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("yourinputFile.txt");
Your jar will be class path, that means you can keep your file in root folder of java source which will get added to jar file while building it.

unable to validate directory loaded from property file

I am trying to load a directory from a properties file. I have the following defined in the property file:
image.src.dir = "C:\\Temp\\foo\\"
Yes, the directory name is like that ... with mixed case. I have also tried simply referring to the directory as "/Temp/foo" with the same outcome.
I have the following code which fails despite the directory existing.
String srcDir = prop.getProperty("image.src.dir");
File folder = new File(srcDir);
if (!folder.isDirectory()) {
System.err.println("Directory: " + srcDir + " doesn't exist");
}
Thanks for the hint ...
The problem & solution:
solution: image.src.dir=C:\\Temp\\foo\\
problem: image.src.dir = "C:\\Temp\\foo\\"
That was my problem ..!

You have quotes in your property file. Quotes are needed for literal Strings in Java, but not Strings defined inside of a properties file.
Try this:
image.src.dir = C:\\Temp\\foo\\

Did you try to System.println(srcDir) if the string gets properly loaded from the properties file? Is the directory accessible (are the rights for superdirectories correct?).