Develop Reference

Get absolute path of java app on Heroku [duplicate]

I want to access my current working directory using Java.
My code:
String currentPath = new java.io.File(".").getCanonicalPath();
System.out.println("Current dir:" + currentPath);
String currentDir = System.getProperty("user.dir");
System.out.println("Current dir using System:" + currentDir);
Output:
Current dir: C:\WINDOWS\system32
Current dir using System: C:\WINDOWS\system32
My output is not correct because the C drive is not my current directory.
How to get the current directory?

Code :
public class JavaApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Working Directory = " + System.getProperty("user.dir"));
}
}
This will print the absolute path of the current directory from where your application was initialized.
Explanation:
From the documentation:
java.io package resolve relative pathnames using current user directory. The current directory is represented as system property, that is, user.dir and is the directory from where the JVM was invoked.

See: Path Operations (The Java™ Tutorials > Essential Classes > Basic I/O).
Using java.nio.file.Path and java.nio.file.Paths, you can do the following to show what Java thinks is your current path. This for 7 and on, and uses NIO.
Path currentRelativePath = Paths.get("");
String s = currentRelativePath.toAbsolutePath().toString();
System.out.println("Current absolute path is: " + s);
This outputs:
Current absolute path is: /Users/george/NetBeansProjects/Tutorials
that in my case is where I ran the class from.
Constructing paths in a relative way, by not using a leading separator to indicate you are constructing an absolute path, will use this relative path as the starting point.

The following works on Java 7 and up (see here for documentation).
import java.nio.file.Paths;
Paths.get(".").toAbsolutePath().normalize().toString();

This will give you the path of your current working directory:
Path path = FileSystems.getDefault().getPath(".");
And this will give you the path to a file called "Foo.txt" in the working directory:
Path path = FileSystems.getDefault().getPath("Foo.txt");
Edit :
To obtain an absolute path of current directory:
Path path = FileSystems.getDefault().getPath(".").toAbsolutePath();
* Update *
To get current working directory:
Path path = FileSystems.getDefault().getPath("").toAbsolutePath();

Java 11 and newer
This solution is better than others and more portable:
Path cwd = Path.of("").toAbsolutePath();
Or even
String cwd = Path.of("").toAbsolutePath().toString();

This is the solution for me
File currentDir = new File("");

What makes you think that c:\windows\system32 is not your current directory? The user.dir property is explicitly to be "User's current working directory".
To put it another way, unless you start Java from the command line, c:\windows\system32 probably is your CWD. That is, if you are double-clicking to start your program, the CWD is unlikely to be the directory that you are double clicking from.
Edit: It appears that this is only true for old windows and/or Java versions.

Use CodeSource#getLocation().
This works fine in JAR files as well. You can obtain CodeSource by ProtectionDomain#getCodeSource() and the ProtectionDomain in turn can be obtained by Class#getProtectionDomain().
public class Test {
public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
URL location = Test.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
System.out.println(location.getFile());
}
}

this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("").getPath()

generally, as a File object:
File getCwd() {
return new File("").getAbsoluteFile();
}
you may want to have full qualified string like "D:/a/b/c" doing:
getCwd().getAbsolutePath()

I'm on Linux and get same result for both of these approaches:
#Test
public void aaa()
{
System.err.println(Paths.get("").toAbsolutePath().toString());
System.err.println(System.getProperty("user.dir"));
}
Paths.get("") docs
System.getProperty("user.dir") docs

I hope you want to access the current directory including the package i.e. If your Java program is in c:\myApp\com\foo\src\service\MyTest.java and you want to print until c:\myApp\com\foo\src\service then you can try the following code:
String myCurrentDir = System.getProperty("user.dir")
+ File.separator
+ System.getProperty("sun.java.command")
.substring(0, System.getProperty("sun.java.command").lastIndexOf("."))
.replace(".", File.separator);
System.out.println(myCurrentDir);
Note: This code is only tested in Windows with Oracle JRE.

On Linux when you run a jar file from terminal, these both will return the same String: "/home/CurrentUser", no matter, where youre jar file is. It depends just on what current directory are you using with your terminal, when you start the jar file.
Paths.get("").toAbsolutePath().toString();
System.getProperty("user.dir");
If your Class with main would be called MainClass, then try:
MainClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().getFile();
This will return a String with absolute path of the jar file.

Using Windows user.dir returns the directory as expected, but NOT when you start your application with elevated rights (run as admin), in that case you get C:\WINDOWS\system32

Mention that it is checked only in Windows but i think it works perfect on other Operating Systems [Linux,MacOs,Solaris] :).
I had 2 .jar files in the same directory . I wanted from the one .jar file to start the other .jar file which is in the same directory.
The problem is that when you start it from the cmd the current directory is system32.
Warnings!
The below seems to work pretty well in all the test i have done even
with folder name ;][[;'57f2g34g87-8+9-09!2##!$%^^&() or ()%&$%^##
it works well.
I am using the ProcessBuilder with the below as following:
🍂..
//The class from which i called this was the class `Main`
String path = getBasePathForClass(Main.class);
String applicationPath= new File(path + "application.jar").getAbsolutePath();
System.out.println("Directory Path is : "+applicationPath);
//Your know try catch here
//Mention that sometimes it doesn't work for example with folder `;][[;'57f2g34g87-8+9-09!2##!$%^^&()`
ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder("java", "-jar", applicationPath);
builder.redirectErrorStream(true);
Process process = builder.start();
//...code
🍂getBasePathForClass(Class<?> classs):
/**
* Returns the absolute path of the current directory in which the given
* class
* file is.
*
* #param classs
* #return The absolute path of the current directory in which the class
* file is.
* #author GOXR3PLUS[StackOverFlow user] + bachden [StackOverFlow user]
*/
public static final String getBasePathForClass(Class<?> classs) {
// Local variables
File file;
String basePath = "";
boolean failed = false;
// Let's give a first try
try {
file = new File(classs.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath());
if (file.isFile() || file.getPath().endsWith(".jar") || file.getPath().endsWith(".zip")) {
basePath = file.getParent();
} else {
basePath = file.getPath();
}
} catch (URISyntaxException ex) {
failed = true;
Logger.getLogger(classs.getName()).log(Level.WARNING,
"Cannot firgue out base path for class with way (1): ", ex);
}
// The above failed?
if (failed) {
try {
file = new File(classs.getClassLoader().getResource("").toURI().getPath());
basePath = file.getAbsolutePath();
// the below is for testing purposes...
// starts with File.separator?
// String l = local.replaceFirst("[" + File.separator +
// "/\\\\]", "")
} catch (URISyntaxException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(classs.getName()).log(Level.WARNING,
"Cannot firgue out base path for class with way (2): ", ex);
}
}
// fix to run inside eclipse
if (basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "lib") || basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "bin")
|| basePath.endsWith("bin" + File.separator) || basePath.endsWith("lib" + File.separator)) {
basePath = basePath.substring(0, basePath.length() - 4);
}
// fix to run inside netbeans
if (basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "build" + File.separator + "classes")) {
basePath = basePath.substring(0, basePath.length() - 14);
}
// end fix
if (!basePath.endsWith(File.separator)) {
basePath = basePath + File.separator;
}
return basePath;
}

assume that you're trying to run your project inside eclipse, or netbean or stand alone from command line. I have write a method to fix it
public static final String getBasePathForClass(Class<?> clazz) {
File file;
try {
String basePath = null;
file = new File(clazz.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath());
if (file.isFile() || file.getPath().endsWith(".jar") || file.getPath().endsWith(".zip")) {
basePath = file.getParent();
} else {
basePath = file.getPath();
}
// fix to run inside eclipse
if (basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "lib") || basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "bin")
|| basePath.endsWith("bin" + File.separator) || basePath.endsWith("lib" + File.separator)) {
basePath = basePath.substring(0, basePath.length() - 4);
}
// fix to run inside netbean
if (basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "build" + File.separator + "classes")) {
basePath = basePath.substring(0, basePath.length() - 14);
}
// end fix
if (!basePath.endsWith(File.separator)) {
basePath = basePath + File.separator;
}
return basePath;
} catch (URISyntaxException e) {
throw new RuntimeException("Cannot firgue out base path for class: " + clazz.getName());
}
}
To use, everywhere you want to get base path to read file, you can pass your anchor class to above method, result may be the thing you need :D
Best,

For Java 11 you could also use:
var path = Path.of(".").toRealPath();

This is a very confuse topic, and we need to understand some concepts before providing a real solution.
The File, and NIO File Api approaches with relative paths "" or "." uses internally the system parameter "user.dir" value to determine the return location.
The "user.dir" value is based on the USER working directory, and the behavior of that value depends on the operative system, and the way the jar is executed.
For example, executing a JAR from Linux using a File Explorer (opening it by double click) will set user.dir with the user home directory, regardless of the location of the jar. If the same jar is executed from command line, it will return the jar location, because each cd command to the jar location modified the working directory.
Having said that, the solutions using Java NIO, Files or "user.dir" property will work for all the scenarios in the way the "user.dir" has the correct value.
String userDirectory = System.getProperty("user.dir");
String userDirectory2 = new File("").getAbsolutePath();
String userDirectory3 = Paths.get("").toAbsolutePath().toString();
We could use the following code:
new File(MyApp.class.getProtectionDomain()
.getCodeSource()
.getLocation()
.toURI().getPath())
.getParent();
to get the current location of the executed JAR, and personally I used the following approach to get the expected location and overriding the "user.dir" system property at the very beginning of the application. So, later when the other approaches are used, I will get the expected values always.
More details here -> https://blog.adamgamboa.dev/getting-current-directory-path-in-java/
public class MyApp {
static {
//This static block runs at the very begin of the APP, even before the main method.
try{
File file = new File(MyApp.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource()
.getLocation().toURI().getPath());
String basePath = file.getParent();
//Overrides the existing value of "user.dir"
System.getProperties().put("user.dir", basePath);
}catch(URISyntaxException ex){
//log the error
}
}
public static void main(String args []){
//Your app logic
//All these approaches should return the expected value
//regardless of the way the jar is executed.
String userDirectory = System.getProperty("user.dir");
String userDirectory2 = new File("").getAbsolutePath();
String userDirectory3 = Paths.get("").toAbsolutePath().toString();
}
}
I hope this explanation and details are helpful to others...

Current working directory is defined differently in different Java implementations. For certain version prior to Java 7 there was no consistent way to get the working directory. You could work around this by launching Java file with -D and defining a variable to hold the info
Something like
java -D com.mycompany.workingDir="%0"
That's not quite right, but you get the idea. Then System.getProperty("com.mycompany.workingDir")...

This is my silver bullet when ever the moment of confusion bubbles in.(Call it as first thing in main). Maybe for example JVM is slipped to be different version by IDE. This static function searches current process PID and opens VisualVM on that pid. Confusion stops right there because you want it all and you get it...
public static void callJVisualVM() {
System.out.println("USER:DIR!:" + System.getProperty("user.dir"));
//next search current jdk/jre
String jre_root = null;
String start = "vir";
try {
java.lang.management.RuntimeMXBean runtime =
java.lang.management.ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean();
String jvmName = runtime.getName();
System.out.println("JVM Name = " + jvmName);
long pid = Long.valueOf(jvmName.split("#")[0]);
System.out.println("JVM PID = " + pid);
Runtime thisRun = Runtime.getRuntime();
jre_root = System.getProperty("java.home");
System.out.println("jre_root:" + jre_root);
start = jre_root.concat("\\..\\bin\\jvisualvm.exe " + "--openpid " + pid);
thisRun.exec(start);
} catch (Exception e) {
System.getProperties().list(System.out);
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

This isn't exactly what's asked, but here's an important note: When running Java on a Windows machine, the Oracle installer puts a "java.exe" into C:\Windows\system32, and this is what acts as the launcher for the Java application (UNLESS there's a java.exe earlier in the PATH, and the Java app is run from the command-line). This is why File(".") keeps returning C:\Windows\system32, and why running examples from macOS or *nix implementations keep coming back with different results from Windows.
Unfortunately, there's really no universally correct answer to this one, as far as I have found in twenty years of Java coding unless you want to create your own native launcher executable using JNI Invocation, and get the current working directory from the native launcher code when it's launched. Everything else is going to have at least some nuance that could break under certain situations.

Try something like this I know I am late for the answer but this obvious thing happened in java8 a new version from where this question is asked but..
The code
import java.io.File;
public class Find_this_dir {
public static void main(String[] args) {
//some sort of a bug in java path is correct but file dose not exist
File this_dir = new File("");
//but these both commands work too to get current dir
// File this_dir_2 = new File(this_dir.getAbsolutePath());
File this_dir_2 = new File(new File("").getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println("new File(" + "\"\"" + ")");
System.out.println(this_dir.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(this_dir.exists());
System.out.println("");
System.out.println("new File(" + "new File(" + "\"\"" + ").getAbsolutePath()" + ")");
System.out.println(this_dir_2.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(this_dir_2.exists());
}
}
This will work and show you the current path but I don't now why java fails to find current dir in new File(""); besides I am using Java8 compiler...
This works just fine I even tested it new File(new File("").getAbsolutePath());
Now you have current directory in a File object so (Example file object is f then),
f.getAbsolutePath() will give you the path in a String varaible type...
Tested in another directory that is not drive C works fine

My favorite method is to get it from the system environment variables attached to the current running process. In this case, your application is being managed by the JVM.
String currentDir = System.getenv("PWD");
/*
/home/$User/Documents/java
*/
To view other environment variables that you might find useful like, home dir, os version ........
//Home directory
String HomeDir = System.getEnv("HOME");
//Outputs for unix
/home/$USER
//Device user
String user = System.getEnv("USERNAME");
//Outputs for unix
$USER
The beautiful thing with this approach is that all paths will be resolved for all types of OS platform

You might use new File("./"). This way isDirectory() returns true (at least on Windows platform). On the other hand new File("") isDirectory() returns false.

None of the answers posted here worked for me. Here is what did work:
java.nio.file.Paths.get(
getClass().getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI()
);
Edit: The final version in my code:
URL myURL = getClass().getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
java.net.URI myURI = null;
try {
myURI = myURL.toURI();
} catch (URISyntaxException e1)
{}
return java.nio.file.Paths.get(myURI).toFile().toString()

System.getProperty("java.class.path")

How to get the location of the program you're running and store it in a File object [duplicate]

Want to improve this post? Provide detailed answers to this question, including citations and an explanation of why your answer is correct. Answers without enough detail may be edited or deleted.
My code runs inside a JAR file, say foo.jar, and I need to know, in the code, in which folder the running foo.jar is.
So, if foo.jar is in C:\FOO\, I want to get that path no matter what my current working directory is.

return new File(MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation()
.toURI()).getPath();
Replace "MyClass" with the name of your class.
Obviously, this will do odd things if your class was loaded from a non-file location.

Best solution for me:
String path = Test.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath();
String decodedPath = URLDecoder.decode(path, "UTF-8");
This should solve the problem with spaces and special characters.

To obtain the File for a given Class, there are two steps:
Convert the Class to a URL
Convert the URL to a File
It is important to understand both steps, and not conflate them.
Once you have the File, you can call getParentFile to get the containing folder, if that is what you need.
Step 1: Class to URL
As discussed in other answers, there are two major ways to find a URL relevant to a Class.
URL url = Bar.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
URL url = Bar.class.getResource(Bar.class.getSimpleName() + ".class");
Both have pros and cons.
The getProtectionDomain approach yields the base location of the class (e.g., the containing JAR file). However, it is possible that the Java runtime's security policy will throw SecurityException when calling getProtectionDomain(), so if your application needs to run in a variety of environments, it is best to test in all of them.
The getResource approach yields the full URL resource path of the class, from which you will need to perform additional string manipulation. It may be a file: path, but it could also be jar:file: or even something nastier like bundleresource://346.fwk2106232034:4/foo/Bar.class when executing within an OSGi framework. Conversely, the getProtectionDomain approach correctly yields a file: URL even from within OSGi.
Note that both getResource("") and getResource(".") failed in my tests, when the class resided within a JAR file; both invocations returned null. So I recommend the #2 invocation shown above instead, as it seems safer.
Step 2: URL to File
Either way, once you have a URL, the next step is convert to a File. This is its own challenge; see Kohsuke Kawaguchi's blog post about it for full details, but in short, you can use new File(url.toURI()) as long as the URL is completely well-formed.
Lastly, I would highly discourage using URLDecoder. Some characters of the URL, : and / in particular, are not valid URL-encoded characters. From the URLDecoder Javadoc:
It is assumed that all characters in the encoded string are one of the following: "a" through "z", "A" through "Z", "0" through "9", and "-", "_", ".", and "*". The character "%" is allowed but is interpreted as the start of a special escaped sequence.
...
There are two possible ways in which this decoder could deal with illegal strings. It could either leave illegal characters alone or it could throw an IllegalArgumentException. Which approach the decoder takes is left to the implementation.
In practice, URLDecoder generally does not throw IllegalArgumentException as threatened above. And if your file path has spaces encoded as %20, this approach may appear to work. However, if your file path has other non-alphameric characters such as + you will have problems with URLDecoder mangling your file path.
Working code
To achieve these steps, you might have methods like the following:
/**
* Gets the base location of the given class.
* <p>
* If the class is directly on the file system (e.g.,
* "/path/to/my/package/MyClass.class") then it will return the base directory
* (e.g., "file:/path/to").
* </p>
* <p>
* If the class is within a JAR file (e.g.,
* "/path/to/my-jar.jar!/my/package/MyClass.class") then it will return the
* path to the JAR (e.g., "file:/path/to/my-jar.jar").
* </p>
*
* #param c The class whose location is desired.
* #see FileUtils#urlToFile(URL) to convert the result to a {#link File}.
*/
public static URL getLocation(final Class<?> c) {
if (c == null) return null; // could not load the class
// try the easy way first
try {
final URL codeSourceLocation =
c.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
if (codeSourceLocation != null) return codeSourceLocation;
}
catch (final SecurityException e) {
// NB: Cannot access protection domain.
}
catch (final NullPointerException e) {
// NB: Protection domain or code source is null.
}
// NB: The easy way failed, so we try the hard way. We ask for the class
// itself as a resource, then strip the class's path from the URL string,
// leaving the base path.
// get the class's raw resource path
final URL classResource = c.getResource(c.getSimpleName() + ".class");
if (classResource == null) return null; // cannot find class resource
final String url = classResource.toString();
final String suffix = c.getCanonicalName().replace('.', '/') + ".class";
if (!url.endsWith(suffix)) return null; // weird URL
// strip the class's path from the URL string
final String base = url.substring(0, url.length() - suffix.length());
String path = base;
// remove the "jar:" prefix and "!/" suffix, if present
if (path.startsWith("jar:")) path = path.substring(4, path.length() - 2);
try {
return new URL(path);
}
catch (final MalformedURLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
return null;
}
}
/**
* Converts the given {#link URL} to its corresponding {#link File}.
* <p>
* This method is similar to calling {#code new File(url.toURI())} except that
* it also handles "jar:file:" URLs, returning the path to the JAR file.
* </p>
*
* #param url The URL to convert.
* #return A file path suitable for use with e.g. {#link FileInputStream}
* #throws IllegalArgumentException if the URL does not correspond to a file.
*/
public static File urlToFile(final URL url) {
return url == null ? null : urlToFile(url.toString());
}
/**
* Converts the given URL string to its corresponding {#link File}.
*
* #param url The URL to convert.
* #return A file path suitable for use with e.g. {#link FileInputStream}
* #throws IllegalArgumentException if the URL does not correspond to a file.
*/
public static File urlToFile(final String url) {
String path = url;
if (path.startsWith("jar:")) {
// remove "jar:" prefix and "!/" suffix
final int index = path.indexOf("!/");
path = path.substring(4, index);
}
try {
if (PlatformUtils.isWindows() && path.matches("file:[A-Za-z]:.*")) {
path = "file:/" + path.substring(5);
}
return new File(new URL(path).toURI());
}
catch (final MalformedURLException e) {
// NB: URL is not completely well-formed.
}
catch (final URISyntaxException e) {
// NB: URL is not completely well-formed.
}
if (path.startsWith("file:")) {
// pass through the URL as-is, minus "file:" prefix
path = path.substring(5);
return new File(path);
}
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid URL: " + url);
}
You can find these methods in the SciJava Common library:
org.scijava.util.ClassUtils
org.scijava.util.FileUtils.

You can also use:
CodeSource codeSource = YourMainClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource();
File jarFile = new File(codeSource.getLocation().toURI().getPath());
String jarDir = jarFile.getParentFile().getPath();

Use ClassLoader.getResource() to find the URL for your current class.
For example:
package foo;
public class Test
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
ClassLoader loader = Test.class.getClassLoader();
System.out.println(loader.getResource("foo/Test.class"));
}
}
(This example taken from a similar question.)
To find the directory, you'd then need to take apart the URL manually. See the JarClassLoader tutorial for the format of a jar URL.

I'm surprised to see that none recently proposed to use Path. Here follows a citation: "The Path class includes various methods that can be used to obtain information about the path, access elements of the path, convert the path to other forms, or extract portions of a path"
Thus, a good alternative is to get the Path objest as:
Path path = Paths.get(Test.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI());

The only solution that works for me on Linux, Mac and Windows:
public static String getJarContainingFolder(Class aclass) throws Exception {
CodeSource codeSource = aclass.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource();
File jarFile;
if (codeSource.getLocation() != null) {
jarFile = new File(codeSource.getLocation().toURI());
}
else {
String path = aclass.getResource(aclass.getSimpleName() + ".class").getPath();
String jarFilePath = path.substring(path.indexOf(":") + 1, path.indexOf("!"));
jarFilePath = URLDecoder.decode(jarFilePath, "UTF-8");
jarFile = new File(jarFilePath);
}
return jarFile.getParentFile().getAbsolutePath();
}

If you are really looking for a simple way to get the folder in which your JAR is located you should use this implementation.
Solutions like this are hard to find and many solutions are no longer supported, many others provide the path of the file instead of the actual directory. This is easier than other solutions you are going to find and works for java version 1.12.
new File(".").getCanonicalPath()
Gathering the Input from other answers this is a simple one too:
String localPath=new File(getClass().getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI()).getParentFile().getPath()+"\\";
Both will return a String with this format:
"C:\Users\User\Desktop\Folder\"
In a simple and concise line.

I had the the same problem and I solved it that way:
File currentJavaJarFile = new File(Main.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath());
String currentJavaJarFilePath = currentJavaJarFile.getAbsolutePath();
String currentRootDirectoryPath = currentJavaJarFilePath.replace(currentJavaJarFile.getName(), "");
I hope I was of help to you.

Here's upgrade to other comments, that seem to me incomplete for the specifics of
using a relative "folder" outside .jar file (in the jar's same
location):
String path =
YourMainClassName.class.getProtectionDomain().
getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath();
path =
URLDecoder.decode(
path,
"UTF-8");
BufferedImage img =
ImageIO.read(
new File((
new File(path).getParentFile().getPath()) +
File.separator +
"folder" +
File.separator +
"yourfile.jpg"));

For getting the path of running jar file I have studied the above solutions and tried all methods which exist some difference each other. If these code are running in Eclipse IDE they all should be able to find the path of the file including the indicated class and open or create an indicated file with the found path.
But it is tricky, when run the runnable jar file directly or through the command line, it will be failed as the path of jar file gotten from the above methods will give an internal path in the jar file, that is it always gives a path as
rsrc:project-name (maybe I should say that it is the package name of the main class file - the indicated class)
I can not convert the rsrc:... path to an external path, that is when run the jar file outside the Eclipse IDE it can not get the path of jar file.
The only possible way for getting the path of running jar file outside Eclipse IDE is
System.getProperty("java.class.path")
this code line may return the living path (including the file name) of the running jar file (note that the return path is not the working directory), as the java document and some people said that it will return the paths of all class files in the same directory, but as my tests if in the same directory include many jar files, it only return the path of running jar (about the multiple paths issue indeed it happened in the Eclipse).

Other answers seem to point to the code source which is Jar file location which is not a directory.
Use
return new File(MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath()).getParentFile();

the selected answer above is not working if you run your jar by click on it from Gnome desktop environment (not from any script or terminal).
Instead, I have fond that the following solution is working everywhere:
try {
return URLDecoder.decode(ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader().getResource(".").getPath(), "UTF-8");
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
return "";
}

I had to mess around a lot before I finally found a working (and short) solution.
It is possible that the jarLocation comes with a prefix like file:\ or jar:file\, which can be removed by using String#substring().
URL jarLocationUrl = MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
String jarLocation = new File(jarLocationUrl.toString()).getParent();

For the jar file path:
String jarPath = new File(MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation()
.toURI()).getPath();
For getting the directory path of that jar file:
String dirPath = new File(MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation()
.toURI()).getParent();
The results of the two lines above are like this:
/home/user/MyPrograms/myapp/myjar.jar (value of jarPath)
/home/user/MyPrograms/myapp (value of dirPath)

public static String dir() throws URISyntaxException
{
URI path=Main.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI();
String name= Main.class.getPackage().getName()+".jar";
String path2 = path.getRawPath();
path2=path2.substring(1);
if (path2.contains(".jar"))
{
path2=path2.replace(name, "");
}
return path2;}
Works good on Windows

I tried to get the jar running path using
String folder = MyClassName.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath();
c:\app>java -jar application.jar
Running the jar application named "application.jar", on Windows in the folder "c:\app", the value of the String variable "folder" was "\c:\app\application.jar" and I had problems testing for path's correctness
File test = new File(folder);
if(file.isDirectory() && file.canRead()) { //always false }
So I tried to define "test" as:
String fold= new File(folder).getParentFile().getPath()
File test = new File(fold);
to get path in a right format like "c:\app" instead of "\c:\app\application.jar" and I noticed that it work.

The simplest solution is to pass the path as an argument when running the jar.
You can automate this with a shell script (.bat in Windows, .sh anywhere else):
java -jar my-jar.jar .
I used . to pass the current working directory.
UPDATE
You may want to stick the jar file in a sub-directory so users don't accidentally click it. Your code should also check to make sure that the command line arguments have been supplied, and provide a good error message if the arguments are missing.

Actually here is a better version - the old one failed if a folder name had a space in it.
private String getJarFolder() {
// get name and path
String name = getClass().getName().replace('.', '/');
name = getClass().getResource("/" + name + ".class").toString();
// remove junk
name = name.substring(0, name.indexOf(".jar"));
name = name.substring(name.lastIndexOf(':')-1, name.lastIndexOf('/')+1).replace('%', ' ');
// remove escape characters
String s = "";
for (int k=0; k<name.length(); k++) {
s += name.charAt(k);
if (name.charAt(k) == ' ') k += 2;
}
// replace '/' with system separator char
return s.replace('/', File.separatorChar);
}
As for failing with applets, you wouldn't usually have access to local files anyway. I don't know much about JWS but to handle local files might it not be possible to download the app.?

String path = getClass().getResource("").getPath();
The path always refers to the resource within the jar file.

Try this:
String path = new File("").getAbsolutePath();

This code worked for me to identify if the program is being executed inside a JAR file or IDE:
private static boolean isRunningOverJar() {
try {
String pathJar = Application.class.getResource(Application.class.getSimpleName() + ".class").getFile();
if (pathJar.toLowerCase().contains(".jar")) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
return false;
}
}
If I need to get the Windows full path of JAR file I am using this method:
private static String getPathJar() {
try {
final URI jarUriPath =
Application.class.getResource(Application.class.getSimpleName() + ".class").toURI();
String jarStringPath = jarUriPath.toString().replace("jar:", "");
String jarCleanPath = Paths.get(new URI(jarStringPath)).toString();
if (jarCleanPath.toLowerCase().contains(".jar")) {
return jarCleanPath.substring(0, jarCleanPath.lastIndexOf(".jar") + 4);
} else {
return null;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
log.error("Error getting JAR path.", e);
return null;
}
}
My complete code working with a Spring Boot application using CommandLineRunner implementation, to ensure that the application always be executed within of a console view (Double clicks by mistake in JAR file name), I am using the next code:
#SpringBootApplication
public class Application implements CommandLineRunner {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
Console console = System.console();
if (console == null && !GraphicsEnvironment.isHeadless() && isRunningOverJar()) {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/c", "start", "cmd", "/k",
"java -jar \"" + getPathJar() + "\""});
} else {
SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
}
}
#Override
public void run(String... args) {
/*
Additional code here...
*/
}
private static boolean isRunningOverJar() {
try {
String pathJar = Application.class.getResource(Application.class.getSimpleName() + ".class").getFile();
if (pathJar.toLowerCase().contains(".jar")) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
return false;
}
}
private static String getPathJar() {
try {
final URI jarUriPath =
Application.class.getResource(Application.class.getSimpleName() + ".class").toURI();
String jarStringPath = jarUriPath.toString().replace("jar:", "");
String jarCleanPath = Paths.get(new URI(jarStringPath)).toString();
if (jarCleanPath.toLowerCase().contains(".jar")) {
return jarCleanPath.substring(0, jarCleanPath.lastIndexOf(".jar") + 4);
} else {
return null;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
return null;
}
}
}

Something that is frustrating is that when you are developing in Eclipse MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation() returns the /bin directory which is great, but when you compile it to a jar, the path includes the /myjarname.jar part which gives you illegal file names.
To have the code work both in the ide and once it is compiled to a jar, I use the following piece of code:
URL applicationRootPathURL = getClass().getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
File applicationRootPath = new File(applicationRootPathURL.getPath());
File myFile;
if(applicationRootPath.isDirectory()){
myFile = new File(applicationRootPath, "filename");
}
else{
myFile = new File(applicationRootPath.getParentFile(), "filename");
}

Not really sure about the others but in my case it didn't work with a "Runnable jar" and i got it working by fixing codes together from phchen2 answer and another from this link :How to get the path of a running JAR file?
The code:
String path=new java.io.File(Server.class.getProtectionDomain()
.getCodeSource()
.getLocation()
.getPath())
.getAbsolutePath();
path=path.substring(0, path.lastIndexOf("."));
path=path+System.getProperty("java.class.path");

Have tried several of the solutions up there but none yielded correct results for the (probably special) case that the runnable jar has been exported with "Packaging external libraries" in Eclipse. For some reason all solutions based on the ProtectionDomain do result in null in that case.
From combining some solutions above I managed to achieve the following working code:
String surroundingJar = null;
// gets the path to the jar file if it exists; or the "bin" directory if calling from Eclipse
String jarDir = new File(ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader().getResource(".").getPath()).getAbsolutePath();
// gets the "bin" directory if calling from eclipse or the name of the .jar file alone (without its path)
String jarFileFromSys = System.getProperty("java.class.path").split(";")[0];
// If both are equal that means it is running from an IDE like Eclipse
if (jarFileFromSys.equals(jarDir))
{
System.out.println("RUNNING FROM IDE!");
// The path to the jar is the "bin" directory in that case because there is no actual .jar file.
surroundingJar = jarDir;
}
else
{
// Combining the path and the name of the .jar file to achieve the final result
surroundingJar = jarDir + jarFileFromSys.substring(1);
}
System.out.println("JAR File: " + surroundingJar);

The above methods didn't work for me in my Spring environment, since Spring shades the actual classes into a package called BOOT-INF, thus not the actual location of the running file. I found another way to retrieve the running file through the Permissions object which have been granted to the running file:
public static Path getEnclosingDirectory() {
return Paths.get(FileUtils.class.getProtectionDomain().getPermissions()
.elements().nextElement().getName()).getParent();
}

Mention that it is checked only in Windows but i think it works perfect on other Operating Systems [Linux,MacOs,Solaris] :).
I had 2 .jar files in the same directory . I wanted from the one .jar file to start the other .jar file which is in the same directory.
The problem is that when you start it from the cmd the current directory is system32.
Warnings!
The below seems to work pretty well in all the test i have done even
with folder name ;][[;'57f2g34g87-8+9-09!2##!$%^^&() or ()%&$%^##
it works well.
I am using the ProcessBuilder with the below as following:
🍂..
//The class from which i called this was the class `Main`
String path = getBasePathForClass(Main.class);
String applicationPath= new File(path + "application.jar").getAbsolutePath();
System.out.println("Directory Path is : "+applicationPath);
//Your know try catch here
//Mention that sometimes it doesn't work for example with folder `;][[;'57f2g34g87-8+9-09!2##!$%^^&()`
ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder("java", "-jar", applicationPath);
builder.redirectErrorStream(true);
Process process = builder.start();
//...code
🍂getBasePathForClass(Class<?> classs):
/**
* Returns the absolute path of the current directory in which the given
* class
* file is.
*
* #param classs
* #return The absolute path of the current directory in which the class
* file is.
* #author GOXR3PLUS[StackOverFlow user] + bachden [StackOverFlow user]
*/
public static final String getBasePathForClass(Class<?> classs) {
// Local variables
File file;
String basePath = "";
boolean failed = false;
// Let's give a first try
try {
file = new File(classs.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath());
if (file.isFile() || file.getPath().endsWith(".jar") || file.getPath().endsWith(".zip")) {
basePath = file.getParent();
} else {
basePath = file.getPath();
}
} catch (URISyntaxException ex) {
failed = true;
Logger.getLogger(classs.getName()).log(Level.WARNING,
"Cannot firgue out base path for class with way (1): ", ex);
}
// The above failed?
if (failed) {
try {
file = new File(classs.getClassLoader().getResource("").toURI().getPath());
basePath = file.getAbsolutePath();
// the below is for testing purposes...
// starts with File.separator?
// String l = local.replaceFirst("[" + File.separator +
// "/\\\\]", "")
} catch (URISyntaxException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(classs.getName()).log(Level.WARNING,
"Cannot firgue out base path for class with way (2): ", ex);
}
}
// fix to run inside eclipse
if (basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "lib") || basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "bin")
|| basePath.endsWith("bin" + File.separator) || basePath.endsWith("lib" + File.separator)) {
basePath = basePath.substring(0, basePath.length() - 4);
}
// fix to run inside netbeans
if (basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "build" + File.separator + "classes")) {
basePath = basePath.substring(0, basePath.length() - 14);
}
// end fix
if (!basePath.endsWith(File.separator)) {
basePath = basePath + File.separator;
}
return basePath;
}

This code worked for me:
private static String getJarPath() throws IOException, URISyntaxException {
File f = new File(LicensingApp.class.getProtectionDomain().().getLocation().toURI());
String jarPath = f.getCanonicalPath().toString();
String jarDir = jarPath.substring( 0, jarPath.lastIndexOf( File.separator ));
return jarDir;
}

The getProtectionDomain approach might not work sometimes e.g. when you have to find the jar for some of the core java classes (e.g in my case StringBuilder class within IBM JDK), however following works seamlessly:
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(findSource(MyClass.class));
// OR
System.out.println(findSource(String.class));
}
public static String findSource(Class<?> clazz) {
String resourceToSearch = '/' + clazz.getName().replace(".", "/") + ".class";
java.net.URL location = clazz.getResource(resourceToSearch);
String sourcePath = location.getPath();
// Optional, Remove junk
return sourcePath.replace("file:", "").replace("!" + resourceToSearch, "");
}

I have another way to get the String location of a class.
URL path = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource("");
Path p = Paths.get(path.toURI());
String location = p.toString();
The output String will have the form of
C:\Users\Administrator\new Workspace\...
The spaces and other characters are handled, and in the form without file:/. So will be easier to use.

Retrieving resources for a subpackage class

I haven't been working with java for long, so I'm not sure as what else to look for. I hope somebody can point me in the right direction.
Goal:
I want to use a look up table, stored as a text file. But I don't want to use absolute paths, as in the end I'd like to pack a release and be able to call it from any location (the text file will be included int the packed release).
Current setup:
I put the text file in a folder called "resources" (because from reading tutorials about java, I got the impression, this is where I'm supposed to put it to maintain a better structured project).
In the root package folder I have a class (MainClass.java) that is calling another class (LookUpClass.java) in a subpackage.
The folder setup is as followed:
src
java
main.package.com
subpackage
LookUpClass.java
PlotterClass.java
MainClass.java
resources
LookUpTables
LookUpTable1.txt
LookUpTable2.txt
I wrote a method in LookUpClass.java that is retrieving a certain line from my lookup tables in resources. To retrieve the file and read out a certain line, I used
// Gets respective line from LUT
private static String getLineFromLUT(int line) {
URL url = LookUpClass.class.getClass().getResource("/LookUpTables/LookUpTable1.txt");
File file = new File(url.toURI());
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));
for (int i = 0; i < line; ++i)
br.readLine();
return br.readLine;
}
In my project structure the "java" folder is marked as "source", while "resources" is marked as, well, "resources".
My test setup is very simple:
public static void main(String[] args) throws URISyntaxException, IOException {
String c = LookUpClass.getLineFromLUT(5);
System.out.println("Color of line 5: " + c);
}
Output:
Color of line 5: 0 0 38
(Which is correct.)
I added the exact same lines to PlotterClass.java and it works fine, too.
Problem:
Now, If I try the same in MainClass.java I get an error with url being null. It seems the resource/resource folder can't be found.
I read through various postings on SO already and tried out several proposed solutions, which all failed so far:
If using LookUpClass.class.getClassLoader().getResource("/LookUpTables/LookUpTable1.txt") both callings from MainClass.java and LookUpClass.java fail (url is null).
I tried using following paths (all not working in either of the classes):
"LookUpTables/LookUpTable1.txt" (removing starting "/")
"/subpackage/LookUpTables/LookUpTable1.txt"
"../subpackage/LookUpTables/LookUpTable1.txt"
Since using Idea IntelliJ, I checked "Settings > Build, Execution, Deployment > Compiter > Resource patterns" and added "*.txt" to the patterns. Nothing changed.
If adding Class c = LookUpClass.class.getClass();, in Debug mode c is "class.java.lang.Class". I was expecting something like "main.package.com.subpackage.LookUpClass".
At some point I tried using getResourceAsStream(), but I didn't understand how to get my (e.g.) 5th line, so I discarded it. I'm willing to read up on this, if it solves my problem though.
I have no idea how to solve this problem. And I realize that at this point I'm just trying out things, not even understanding why it could or could not work.
For me, it just seems LookUpClass.java is run from a different location than MainClass.java. But the "resources"-folder and respective text file location never change. How can the file be found in one case, but not in the other?

Maven has a standard directory layout. The directory src/main/resources is intended for such application resources. Place your text files into it.
You now basically have two options where exactly to place your files:
The resource file belongs to a class.
An example for this is a class representing a GUI element (a panel) that needs to also show some images.
In this case place the resource file into the same directory (package) as the corresponding class. E.g. for a class named your.pkg.YourClass place the resource file into the directory your/pkg:
src/main
+-- java/
| +-- your/pkg/
| | +-- YourClass.java
+-- resources/
+-- your/pkg/
+-- resource-file.txt
You now load the resource via the corresponding class. Inside the class your.pkg.YourClass you have the following code snippet for loading:
String resource = "resource-file.txt"; // the "file name" without any package or directory
Class<?> clazz = this.getClass(); // or YourClass.class
URL resourceUrl = clazz.getResource(resource);
if (resourceUrl != null) {
try (InputStream input = resourceUrl.openStream()) {
// load the resource here from the input stream
}
}
Note: You can also load the resource via the class' class loader:
String resource = "your/pkg/resource-file.txt";
ClassLoader loader = this.getClass().getClassLoader(); // or YourClass.class.getClassLoader()
URL resourceUrl = loader.getResource(resource);
if (resourceUrl != null) {
try (InputStream input = resourceUrl.openStream()) {
// load the resource here from the input stream
}
}
Choose, what you find more convenient.
The resource belongs to the application at whole.
In this case simply place the resource directly into the src/main/resources directory or into an appropriate sub directory. Let's look at an example with your lookup file:
src/main/resources/
+-- LookupTables/
+-- LookUpTable1.txt
You then must load the resource via a class loader, using either the current thread's context class loader or the application class loader (whatever is more appropriate - go and search for articles on this issue if interested). I will show you both ways:
String resource = "LookupTables/LookUpTable1.txt";
ClassLoader ctxLoader = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader();
ClassLoader sysLoader = ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader();
URL resourceUrl = ctxLoader.getResource(resource); // or sysLoader.getResource(resource)
if (resourceUrl != null) {
try (InputStream input = resourceUrl.openStream()) {
// load the resource here from the input stream
}
}
As a first suggestion, use the current thread's context class loader. In a standalone application this will be the system class loader or have the system class loader as a parent. (The distinction between these class loaders will become important for libraries that also load resources.)
You should always use a class loader for loading resource. This way you make loading independent from the place (just take care that the files are inside the class path when launching the application) and you can package the whole application into a JAR file which still finds the resources.

I tried to reproduce your problem given the MWE you provided, but did not succeed. I uploaded my project including a pom.xml (you mentioned you used maven) here: http://www.filedropper.com/stackoverflow
This is what my lookup class looks like (also showing how to use the getResourceAsStream method):
public class LookUpClass {
final static String tableName = "resources/LookUpTables/LookUpTable1.txt";
public static String getLineFromLUT(final int line) {
final URL url = LookUpClass.class.getResource(tableName);
if (url.toString().startsWith("jar:")) {
try (final URLClassLoader loader = URLClassLoader
.newInstance(new URL[] { url })) {
return getLineFromLUT(
new InputStreamReader(
loader.getResourceAsStream(tableName)), line);
} catch (final IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
} else {
return getLineFromLUT(
new InputStreamReader(
LookUpClass.class.getResourceAsStream(tableName)),
line);
}
return null;
}
public static String getLineFromLUT(final Reader reader, final int line) {
try (final BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(reader)) {
for (int i = 0; i < line; ++i)
br.readLine();
return br.readLine();
} catch (final IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
}

How to get the absolute path of the Jar file? [duplicate]

Want to improve this post? Provide detailed answers to this question, including citations and an explanation of why your answer is correct. Answers without enough detail may be edited or deleted.
My code runs inside a JAR file, say foo.jar, and I need to know, in the code, in which folder the running foo.jar is.
So, if foo.jar is in C:\FOO\, I want to get that path no matter what my current working directory is.

return new File(MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation()
.toURI()).getPath();
Replace "MyClass" with the name of your class.
Obviously, this will do odd things if your class was loaded from a non-file location.

Best solution for me:
String path = Test.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath();
String decodedPath = URLDecoder.decode(path, "UTF-8");
This should solve the problem with spaces and special characters.

To obtain the File for a given Class, there are two steps:
Convert the Class to a URL
Convert the URL to a File
It is important to understand both steps, and not conflate them.
Once you have the File, you can call getParentFile to get the containing folder, if that is what you need.
Step 1: Class to URL
As discussed in other answers, there are two major ways to find a URL relevant to a Class.
URL url = Bar.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
URL url = Bar.class.getResource(Bar.class.getSimpleName() + ".class");
Both have pros and cons.
The getProtectionDomain approach yields the base location of the class (e.g., the containing JAR file). However, it is possible that the Java runtime's security policy will throw SecurityException when calling getProtectionDomain(), so if your application needs to run in a variety of environments, it is best to test in all of them.
The getResource approach yields the full URL resource path of the class, from which you will need to perform additional string manipulation. It may be a file: path, but it could also be jar:file: or even something nastier like bundleresource://346.fwk2106232034:4/foo/Bar.class when executing within an OSGi framework. Conversely, the getProtectionDomain approach correctly yields a file: URL even from within OSGi.
Note that both getResource("") and getResource(".") failed in my tests, when the class resided within a JAR file; both invocations returned null. So I recommend the #2 invocation shown above instead, as it seems safer.
Step 2: URL to File
Either way, once you have a URL, the next step is convert to a File. This is its own challenge; see Kohsuke Kawaguchi's blog post about it for full details, but in short, you can use new File(url.toURI()) as long as the URL is completely well-formed.
Lastly, I would highly discourage using URLDecoder. Some characters of the URL, : and / in particular, are not valid URL-encoded characters. From the URLDecoder Javadoc:
It is assumed that all characters in the encoded string are one of the following: "a" through "z", "A" through "Z", "0" through "9", and "-", "_", ".", and "*". The character "%" is allowed but is interpreted as the start of a special escaped sequence.
...
There are two possible ways in which this decoder could deal with illegal strings. It could either leave illegal characters alone or it could throw an IllegalArgumentException. Which approach the decoder takes is left to the implementation.
In practice, URLDecoder generally does not throw IllegalArgumentException as threatened above. And if your file path has spaces encoded as %20, this approach may appear to work. However, if your file path has other non-alphameric characters such as + you will have problems with URLDecoder mangling your file path.
Working code
To achieve these steps, you might have methods like the following:
/**
* Gets the base location of the given class.
* <p>
* If the class is directly on the file system (e.g.,
* "/path/to/my/package/MyClass.class") then it will return the base directory
* (e.g., "file:/path/to").
* </p>
* <p>
* If the class is within a JAR file (e.g.,
* "/path/to/my-jar.jar!/my/package/MyClass.class") then it will return the
* path to the JAR (e.g., "file:/path/to/my-jar.jar").
* </p>
*
* #param c The class whose location is desired.
* #see FileUtils#urlToFile(URL) to convert the result to a {#link File}.
*/
public static URL getLocation(final Class<?> c) {
if (c == null) return null; // could not load the class
// try the easy way first
try {
final URL codeSourceLocation =
c.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
if (codeSourceLocation != null) return codeSourceLocation;
}
catch (final SecurityException e) {
// NB: Cannot access protection domain.
}
catch (final NullPointerException e) {
// NB: Protection domain or code source is null.
}
// NB: The easy way failed, so we try the hard way. We ask for the class
// itself as a resource, then strip the class's path from the URL string,
// leaving the base path.
// get the class's raw resource path
final URL classResource = c.getResource(c.getSimpleName() + ".class");
if (classResource == null) return null; // cannot find class resource
final String url = classResource.toString();
final String suffix = c.getCanonicalName().replace('.', '/') + ".class";
if (!url.endsWith(suffix)) return null; // weird URL
// strip the class's path from the URL string
final String base = url.substring(0, url.length() - suffix.length());
String path = base;
// remove the "jar:" prefix and "!/" suffix, if present
if (path.startsWith("jar:")) path = path.substring(4, path.length() - 2);
try {
return new URL(path);
}
catch (final MalformedURLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
return null;
}
}
/**
* Converts the given {#link URL} to its corresponding {#link File}.
* <p>
* This method is similar to calling {#code new File(url.toURI())} except that
* it also handles "jar:file:" URLs, returning the path to the JAR file.
* </p>
*
* #param url The URL to convert.
* #return A file path suitable for use with e.g. {#link FileInputStream}
* #throws IllegalArgumentException if the URL does not correspond to a file.
*/
public static File urlToFile(final URL url) {
return url == null ? null : urlToFile(url.toString());
}
/**
* Converts the given URL string to its corresponding {#link File}.
*
* #param url The URL to convert.
* #return A file path suitable for use with e.g. {#link FileInputStream}
* #throws IllegalArgumentException if the URL does not correspond to a file.
*/
public static File urlToFile(final String url) {
String path = url;
if (path.startsWith("jar:")) {
// remove "jar:" prefix and "!/" suffix
final int index = path.indexOf("!/");
path = path.substring(4, index);
}
try {
if (PlatformUtils.isWindows() && path.matches("file:[A-Za-z]:.*")) {
path = "file:/" + path.substring(5);
}
return new File(new URL(path).toURI());
}
catch (final MalformedURLException e) {
// NB: URL is not completely well-formed.
}
catch (final URISyntaxException e) {
// NB: URL is not completely well-formed.
}
if (path.startsWith("file:")) {
// pass through the URL as-is, minus "file:" prefix
path = path.substring(5);
return new File(path);
}
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid URL: " + url);
}
You can find these methods in the SciJava Common library:
org.scijava.util.ClassUtils
org.scijava.util.FileUtils.

You can also use:
CodeSource codeSource = YourMainClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource();
File jarFile = new File(codeSource.getLocation().toURI().getPath());
String jarDir = jarFile.getParentFile().getPath();

Use ClassLoader.getResource() to find the URL for your current class.
For example:
package foo;
public class Test
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
ClassLoader loader = Test.class.getClassLoader();
System.out.println(loader.getResource("foo/Test.class"));
}
}
(This example taken from a similar question.)
To find the directory, you'd then need to take apart the URL manually. See the JarClassLoader tutorial for the format of a jar URL.

I'm surprised to see that none recently proposed to use Path. Here follows a citation: "The Path class includes various methods that can be used to obtain information about the path, access elements of the path, convert the path to other forms, or extract portions of a path"
Thus, a good alternative is to get the Path objest as:
Path path = Paths.get(Test.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI());

The only solution that works for me on Linux, Mac and Windows:
public static String getJarContainingFolder(Class aclass) throws Exception {
CodeSource codeSource = aclass.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource();
File jarFile;
if (codeSource.getLocation() != null) {
jarFile = new File(codeSource.getLocation().toURI());
}
else {
String path = aclass.getResource(aclass.getSimpleName() + ".class").getPath();
String jarFilePath = path.substring(path.indexOf(":") + 1, path.indexOf("!"));
jarFilePath = URLDecoder.decode(jarFilePath, "UTF-8");
jarFile = new File(jarFilePath);
}
return jarFile.getParentFile().getAbsolutePath();
}

If you are really looking for a simple way to get the folder in which your JAR is located you should use this implementation.
Solutions like this are hard to find and many solutions are no longer supported, many others provide the path of the file instead of the actual directory. This is easier than other solutions you are going to find and works for java version 1.12.
new File(".").getCanonicalPath()
Gathering the Input from other answers this is a simple one too:
String localPath=new File(getClass().getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI()).getParentFile().getPath()+"\\";
Both will return a String with this format:
"C:\Users\User\Desktop\Folder\"
In a simple and concise line.

I had the the same problem and I solved it that way:
File currentJavaJarFile = new File(Main.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath());
String currentJavaJarFilePath = currentJavaJarFile.getAbsolutePath();
String currentRootDirectoryPath = currentJavaJarFilePath.replace(currentJavaJarFile.getName(), "");
I hope I was of help to you.

Here's upgrade to other comments, that seem to me incomplete for the specifics of
using a relative "folder" outside .jar file (in the jar's same
location):
String path =
YourMainClassName.class.getProtectionDomain().
getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath();
path =
URLDecoder.decode(
path,
"UTF-8");
BufferedImage img =
ImageIO.read(
new File((
new File(path).getParentFile().getPath()) +
File.separator +
"folder" +
File.separator +
"yourfile.jpg"));

For getting the path of running jar file I have studied the above solutions and tried all methods which exist some difference each other. If these code are running in Eclipse IDE they all should be able to find the path of the file including the indicated class and open or create an indicated file with the found path.
But it is tricky, when run the runnable jar file directly or through the command line, it will be failed as the path of jar file gotten from the above methods will give an internal path in the jar file, that is it always gives a path as
rsrc:project-name (maybe I should say that it is the package name of the main class file - the indicated class)
I can not convert the rsrc:... path to an external path, that is when run the jar file outside the Eclipse IDE it can not get the path of jar file.
The only possible way for getting the path of running jar file outside Eclipse IDE is
System.getProperty("java.class.path")
this code line may return the living path (including the file name) of the running jar file (note that the return path is not the working directory), as the java document and some people said that it will return the paths of all class files in the same directory, but as my tests if in the same directory include many jar files, it only return the path of running jar (about the multiple paths issue indeed it happened in the Eclipse).

Other answers seem to point to the code source which is Jar file location which is not a directory.
Use
return new File(MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath()).getParentFile();

the selected answer above is not working if you run your jar by click on it from Gnome desktop environment (not from any script or terminal).
Instead, I have fond that the following solution is working everywhere:
try {
return URLDecoder.decode(ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader().getResource(".").getPath(), "UTF-8");
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
return "";
}

I had to mess around a lot before I finally found a working (and short) solution.
It is possible that the jarLocation comes with a prefix like file:\ or jar:file\, which can be removed by using String#substring().
URL jarLocationUrl = MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
String jarLocation = new File(jarLocationUrl.toString()).getParent();

For the jar file path:
String jarPath = new File(MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation()
.toURI()).getPath();
For getting the directory path of that jar file:
String dirPath = new File(MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation()
.toURI()).getParent();
The results of the two lines above are like this:
/home/user/MyPrograms/myapp/myjar.jar (value of jarPath)
/home/user/MyPrograms/myapp (value of dirPath)

public static String dir() throws URISyntaxException
{
URI path=Main.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI();
String name= Main.class.getPackage().getName()+".jar";
String path2 = path.getRawPath();
path2=path2.substring(1);
if (path2.contains(".jar"))
{
path2=path2.replace(name, "");
}
return path2;}
Works good on Windows

I tried to get the jar running path using
String folder = MyClassName.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath();
c:\app>java -jar application.jar
Running the jar application named "application.jar", on Windows in the folder "c:\app", the value of the String variable "folder" was "\c:\app\application.jar" and I had problems testing for path's correctness
File test = new File(folder);
if(file.isDirectory() && file.canRead()) { //always false }
So I tried to define "test" as:
String fold= new File(folder).getParentFile().getPath()
File test = new File(fold);
to get path in a right format like "c:\app" instead of "\c:\app\application.jar" and I noticed that it work.

The simplest solution is to pass the path as an argument when running the jar.
You can automate this with a shell script (.bat in Windows, .sh anywhere else):
java -jar my-jar.jar .
I used . to pass the current working directory.
UPDATE
You may want to stick the jar file in a sub-directory so users don't accidentally click it. Your code should also check to make sure that the command line arguments have been supplied, and provide a good error message if the arguments are missing.

Actually here is a better version - the old one failed if a folder name had a space in it.
private String getJarFolder() {
// get name and path
String name = getClass().getName().replace('.', '/');
name = getClass().getResource("/" + name + ".class").toString();
// remove junk
name = name.substring(0, name.indexOf(".jar"));
name = name.substring(name.lastIndexOf(':')-1, name.lastIndexOf('/')+1).replace('%', ' ');
// remove escape characters
String s = "";
for (int k=0; k<name.length(); k++) {
s += name.charAt(k);
if (name.charAt(k) == ' ') k += 2;
}
// replace '/' with system separator char
return s.replace('/', File.separatorChar);
}
As for failing with applets, you wouldn't usually have access to local files anyway. I don't know much about JWS but to handle local files might it not be possible to download the app.?

String path = getClass().getResource("").getPath();
The path always refers to the resource within the jar file.

Try this:
String path = new File("").getAbsolutePath();

This code worked for me to identify if the program is being executed inside a JAR file or IDE:
private static boolean isRunningOverJar() {
try {
String pathJar = Application.class.getResource(Application.class.getSimpleName() + ".class").getFile();
if (pathJar.toLowerCase().contains(".jar")) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
return false;
}
}
If I need to get the Windows full path of JAR file I am using this method:
private static String getPathJar() {
try {
final URI jarUriPath =
Application.class.getResource(Application.class.getSimpleName() + ".class").toURI();
String jarStringPath = jarUriPath.toString().replace("jar:", "");
String jarCleanPath = Paths.get(new URI(jarStringPath)).toString();
if (jarCleanPath.toLowerCase().contains(".jar")) {
return jarCleanPath.substring(0, jarCleanPath.lastIndexOf(".jar") + 4);
} else {
return null;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
log.error("Error getting JAR path.", e);
return null;
}
}
My complete code working with a Spring Boot application using CommandLineRunner implementation, to ensure that the application always be executed within of a console view (Double clicks by mistake in JAR file name), I am using the next code:
#SpringBootApplication
public class Application implements CommandLineRunner {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
Console console = System.console();
if (console == null && !GraphicsEnvironment.isHeadless() && isRunningOverJar()) {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"cmd", "/c", "start", "cmd", "/k",
"java -jar \"" + getPathJar() + "\""});
} else {
SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
}
}
#Override
public void run(String... args) {
/*
Additional code here...
*/
}
private static boolean isRunningOverJar() {
try {
String pathJar = Application.class.getResource(Application.class.getSimpleName() + ".class").getFile();
if (pathJar.toLowerCase().contains(".jar")) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
return false;
}
}
private static String getPathJar() {
try {
final URI jarUriPath =
Application.class.getResource(Application.class.getSimpleName() + ".class").toURI();
String jarStringPath = jarUriPath.toString().replace("jar:", "");
String jarCleanPath = Paths.get(new URI(jarStringPath)).toString();
if (jarCleanPath.toLowerCase().contains(".jar")) {
return jarCleanPath.substring(0, jarCleanPath.lastIndexOf(".jar") + 4);
} else {
return null;
}
} catch (Exception e) {
return null;
}
}
}

Something that is frustrating is that when you are developing in Eclipse MyClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation() returns the /bin directory which is great, but when you compile it to a jar, the path includes the /myjarname.jar part which gives you illegal file names.
To have the code work both in the ide and once it is compiled to a jar, I use the following piece of code:
URL applicationRootPathURL = getClass().getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
File applicationRootPath = new File(applicationRootPathURL.getPath());
File myFile;
if(applicationRootPath.isDirectory()){
myFile = new File(applicationRootPath, "filename");
}
else{
myFile = new File(applicationRootPath.getParentFile(), "filename");
}

Not really sure about the others but in my case it didn't work with a "Runnable jar" and i got it working by fixing codes together from phchen2 answer and another from this link :How to get the path of a running JAR file?
The code:
String path=new java.io.File(Server.class.getProtectionDomain()
.getCodeSource()
.getLocation()
.getPath())
.getAbsolutePath();
path=path.substring(0, path.lastIndexOf("."));
path=path+System.getProperty("java.class.path");

Have tried several of the solutions up there but none yielded correct results for the (probably special) case that the runnable jar has been exported with "Packaging external libraries" in Eclipse. For some reason all solutions based on the ProtectionDomain do result in null in that case.
From combining some solutions above I managed to achieve the following working code:
String surroundingJar = null;
// gets the path to the jar file if it exists; or the "bin" directory if calling from Eclipse
String jarDir = new File(ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader().getResource(".").getPath()).getAbsolutePath();
// gets the "bin" directory if calling from eclipse or the name of the .jar file alone (without its path)
String jarFileFromSys = System.getProperty("java.class.path").split(";")[0];
// If both are equal that means it is running from an IDE like Eclipse
if (jarFileFromSys.equals(jarDir))
{
System.out.println("RUNNING FROM IDE!");
// The path to the jar is the "bin" directory in that case because there is no actual .jar file.
surroundingJar = jarDir;
}
else
{
// Combining the path and the name of the .jar file to achieve the final result
surroundingJar = jarDir + jarFileFromSys.substring(1);
}
System.out.println("JAR File: " + surroundingJar);

The above methods didn't work for me in my Spring environment, since Spring shades the actual classes into a package called BOOT-INF, thus not the actual location of the running file. I found another way to retrieve the running file through the Permissions object which have been granted to the running file:
public static Path getEnclosingDirectory() {
return Paths.get(FileUtils.class.getProtectionDomain().getPermissions()
.elements().nextElement().getName()).getParent();
}

Mention that it is checked only in Windows but i think it works perfect on other Operating Systems [Linux,MacOs,Solaris] :).
I had 2 .jar files in the same directory . I wanted from the one .jar file to start the other .jar file which is in the same directory.
The problem is that when you start it from the cmd the current directory is system32.
Warnings!
The below seems to work pretty well in all the test i have done even
with folder name ;][[;'57f2g34g87-8+9-09!2##!$%^^&() or ()%&$%^##
it works well.
I am using the ProcessBuilder with the below as following:
🍂..
//The class from which i called this was the class `Main`
String path = getBasePathForClass(Main.class);
String applicationPath= new File(path + "application.jar").getAbsolutePath();
System.out.println("Directory Path is : "+applicationPath);
//Your know try catch here
//Mention that sometimes it doesn't work for example with folder `;][[;'57f2g34g87-8+9-09!2##!$%^^&()`
ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder("java", "-jar", applicationPath);
builder.redirectErrorStream(true);
Process process = builder.start();
//...code
🍂getBasePathForClass(Class<?> classs):
/**
* Returns the absolute path of the current directory in which the given
* class
* file is.
*
* #param classs
* #return The absolute path of the current directory in which the class
* file is.
* #author GOXR3PLUS[StackOverFlow user] + bachden [StackOverFlow user]
*/
public static final String getBasePathForClass(Class<?> classs) {
// Local variables
File file;
String basePath = "";
boolean failed = false;
// Let's give a first try
try {
file = new File(classs.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI().getPath());
if (file.isFile() || file.getPath().endsWith(".jar") || file.getPath().endsWith(".zip")) {
basePath = file.getParent();
} else {
basePath = file.getPath();
}
} catch (URISyntaxException ex) {
failed = true;
Logger.getLogger(classs.getName()).log(Level.WARNING,
"Cannot firgue out base path for class with way (1): ", ex);
}
// The above failed?
if (failed) {
try {
file = new File(classs.getClassLoader().getResource("").toURI().getPath());
basePath = file.getAbsolutePath();
// the below is for testing purposes...
// starts with File.separator?
// String l = local.replaceFirst("[" + File.separator +
// "/\\\\]", "")
} catch (URISyntaxException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(classs.getName()).log(Level.WARNING,
"Cannot firgue out base path for class with way (2): ", ex);
}
}
// fix to run inside eclipse
if (basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "lib") || basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "bin")
|| basePath.endsWith("bin" + File.separator) || basePath.endsWith("lib" + File.separator)) {
basePath = basePath.substring(0, basePath.length() - 4);
}
// fix to run inside netbeans
if (basePath.endsWith(File.separator + "build" + File.separator + "classes")) {
basePath = basePath.substring(0, basePath.length() - 14);
}
// end fix
if (!basePath.endsWith(File.separator)) {
basePath = basePath + File.separator;
}
return basePath;
}

This code worked for me:
private static String getJarPath() throws IOException, URISyntaxException {
File f = new File(LicensingApp.class.getProtectionDomain().().getLocation().toURI());
String jarPath = f.getCanonicalPath().toString();
String jarDir = jarPath.substring( 0, jarPath.lastIndexOf( File.separator ));
return jarDir;
}

The getProtectionDomain approach might not work sometimes e.g. when you have to find the jar for some of the core java classes (e.g in my case StringBuilder class within IBM JDK), however following works seamlessly:
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(findSource(MyClass.class));
// OR
System.out.println(findSource(String.class));
}
public static String findSource(Class<?> clazz) {
String resourceToSearch = '/' + clazz.getName().replace(".", "/") + ".class";
java.net.URL location = clazz.getResource(resourceToSearch);
String sourcePath = location.getPath();
// Optional, Remove junk
return sourcePath.replace("file:", "").replace("!" + resourceToSearch, "");
}

I have another way to get the String location of a class.
URL path = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource("");
Path p = Paths.get(path.toURI());
String location = p.toString();
The output String will have the form of
C:\Users\Administrator\new Workspace\...
The spaces and other characters are handled, and in the form without file:/. So will be easier to use.

How can I access a folder inside of a resource folder from inside my jar File?

I have a resources folder/package in the root of my project, I "don't" want to load a certain File. If I wanted to load a certain File, I would use class.getResourceAsStream and I would be fine!! What I actually want to do is to load a "Folder" within the resources folder, loop on the Files inside that Folder and get a Stream to each file and read in the content... Assume that the File names are not determined before runtime... What should I do? Is there a way to get a list of the files inside a Folder in your jar File?
Notice that the Jar file with the resources is the same jar file from which the code is being run...

Finally, I found the solution:
final String path = "sample/folder";
final File jarFile = new File(getClass().getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().getPath());
if(jarFile.isFile()) { // Run with JAR file
final JarFile jar = new JarFile(jarFile);
final Enumeration<JarEntry> entries = jar.entries(); //gives ALL entries in jar
while(entries.hasMoreElements()) {
final String name = entries.nextElement().getName();
if (name.startsWith(path + "/")) { //filter according to the path
System.out.println(name);
}
}
jar.close();
} else { // Run with IDE
final URL url = Launcher.class.getResource("/" + path);
if (url != null) {
try {
final File apps = new File(url.toURI());
for (File app : apps.listFiles()) {
System.out.println(app);
}
} catch (URISyntaxException ex) {
// never happens
}
}
}
The second block just work when you run the application on IDE (not with jar file), You can remove it if you don't like that.

Try the following.
Make the resource path "<PathRelativeToThisClassFile>/<ResourceDirectory>" E.g. if your class path is com.abc.package.MyClass and your resoure files are within src/com/abc/package/resources/:
URL url = MyClass.class.getResource("resources/");
if (url == null) {
// error - missing folder
} else {
File dir = new File(url.toURI());
for (File nextFile : dir.listFiles()) {
// Do something with nextFile
}
}
You can also use
URL url = MyClass.class.getResource("/com/abc/package/resources/");

The following code returns the wanted "folder" as Path regardless of if it is inside a jar or not.
private Path getFolderPath() throws URISyntaxException, IOException {
URI uri = getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("folder").toURI();
if ("jar".equals(uri.getScheme())) {
FileSystem fileSystem = FileSystems.newFileSystem(uri, Collections.emptyMap(), null);
return fileSystem.getPath("path/to/folder/inside/jar");
} else {
return Paths.get(uri);
}
}
Requires java 7+.

I know this is many years ago . But just for other people come across this topic.
What you could do is to use getResourceAsStream() method with the directory path, and the input Stream will have all the files name from that dir. After that you can concat the dir path with each file name and call getResourceAsStream for each file in a loop.

I had the same problem at hands while i was attempting to load some hadoop configurations from resources packed in the jar... on both the IDE and on jar (release version).
I found java.nio.file.DirectoryStream to work the best to iterate over directory contents over both local filesystem and jar.
String fooFolder = "/foo/folder";
....
ClassLoader classLoader = foofClass.class.getClassLoader();
try {
uri = classLoader.getResource(fooFolder).toURI();
} catch (URISyntaxException e) {
throw new FooException(e.getMessage());
} catch (NullPointerException e){
throw new FooException(e.getMessage());
}
if(uri == null){
throw new FooException("something is wrong directory or files missing");
}
/** i want to know if i am inside the jar or working on the IDE*/
if(uri.getScheme().contains("jar")){
/** jar case */
try{
URL jar = FooClass.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation();
//jar.toString() begins with file:
//i want to trim it out...
Path jarFile = Paths.get(jar.toString().substring("file:".length()));
FileSystem fs = FileSystems.newFileSystem(jarFile, null);
DirectoryStream<Path> directoryStream = Files.newDirectoryStream(fs.getPath(fooFolder));
for(Path p: directoryStream){
InputStream is = FooClass.class.getResourceAsStream(p.toString()) ;
performFooOverInputStream(is);
/** your logic here **/
}
}catch(IOException e) {
throw new FooException(e.getMessage());
}
}
else{
/** IDE case */
Path path = Paths.get(uri);
try {
DirectoryStream<Path> directoryStream = Files.newDirectoryStream(path);
for(Path p : directoryStream){
InputStream is = new FileInputStream(p.toFile());
performFooOverInputStream(is);
}
} catch (IOException _e) {
throw new FooException(_e.getMessage());
}
}

Another solution, you can do it using ResourceLoader like this:
import org.springframework.core.io.Resource;
import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
#Autowire
private ResourceLoader resourceLoader;
...
Resource resource = resourceLoader.getResource("classpath:/path/to/you/dir");
File file = resource.getFile();
Iterator<File> fi = FileUtils.iterateFiles(file, null, true);
while(fi.hasNext()) {
load(fi.next())
}

If you are using Spring you can use org.springframework.core.io.support.PathMatchingResourcePatternResolver and deal with Resource objects rather than files. This works when running inside and outside of a Jar file.
PathMatchingResourcePatternResolver r = new PathMatchingResourcePatternResolver();
Resource[] resources = r.getResources("/myfolder/*");
Then you can access the data using getInputStream and the filename from getFilename.
Note that it will still fail if you try to use the getFile while running from a Jar.

As the other answers point out, once the resources are inside a jar file, things get really ugly. In our case, this solution:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/13227570/516188
works very well in the tests (since when the tests are run the code is not packed in a jar file), but doesn't work when the app actually runs normally. So what I've done is... I hardcode the list of the files in the app, but I have a test which reads the actual list from disk (can do it since that works in tests) and fails if the actual list doesn't match with the list the app returns.
That way I have simple code in my app (no tricks), and I'm sure I didn't forget to add a new entry in the list thanks to the test.

Below code gets .yaml files from a custom resource directory.
ClassLoader classLoader = this.getClass().getClassLoader();
URI uri = classLoader.getResource(directoryPath).toURI();
if("jar".equalsIgnoreCase(uri.getScheme())){
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("^.+" +"/classes/" + directoryPath + "/.+.yaml$");
log.debug("pattern {} ", pattern.pattern());
ApplicationHome home = new ApplicationHome(SomeApplication.class);
JarFile file = new JarFile(home.getSource());
Enumeration<JarEntry> jarEntries = file.entries() ;
while(jarEntries.hasMoreElements()){
JarEntry entry = jarEntries.nextElement();
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(entry.getName());
if(matcher.find()){
InputStream in =
file.getInputStream(entry);
//work on the stream
}
}
}else{
//When Spring boot application executed through Non-Jar strategy like through IDE or as a War.
String path = uri.getPath();
File[] files = new File(path).listFiles();
for(File file: files){
if(file != null){
try {
InputStream is = new FileInputStream(file);
//work on stream
} catch (Exception e) {
log.error("Exception while parsing file yaml file {} : {} " , file.getAbsolutePath(), e.getMessage());
}
}else{
log.warn("File Object is null while parsing yaml file");
}
}
}

Took me 2-3 days to get this working, in order to have the same url that work for both Jar or in local, the url (or path) needs to be a relative path from the repository root.
..meaning, the location of your file or folder from your src folder.
could be "/main/resources/your-folder/" or "/client/notes/somefile.md"
Whatever it is, in order for your JAR file to find it, the url must be a relative path from the repository root.
it must be "src/main/resources/your-folder/" or "src/client/notes/somefile.md"
Now you get the drill, and luckily for Intellij Idea users, you can get the correct path with a right-click on the folder or file -> copy Path/Reference.. -> Path From Repository Root (this is it)
Last, paste it and do your thing.

Simple ... use OSGi. In OSGi you can iterate over your Bundle's entries with findEntries and findPaths.

Inside my jar file I had a folder called Upload, this folder had three other text files inside it and I needed to have an exactly the same folder and files outside of the jar file, I used the code below:
URL inputUrl = getClass().getResource("/upload/blabla1.txt");
File dest1 = new File("upload/blabla1.txt");
FileUtils.copyURLToFile(inputUrl, dest1);
URL inputUrl2 = getClass().getResource("/upload/blabla2.txt");
File dest2 = new File("upload/blabla2.txt");
FileUtils.copyURLToFile(inputUrl2, dest2);
URL inputUrl3 = getClass().getResource("/upload/blabla3.txt");
File dest3 = new File("upload/Bblabla3.txt");
FileUtils.copyURLToFile(inputUrl3, dest3);