Access file (JAVA)

Access resource / file packaged inside a jar or a located on classpath.

Two ways to access the file located inside jar or located on classpath. 

1. Use getResourceAsStream("filename") on ClassLoader, one can retrieve the class loader instance from class instance of any class or Thread.currentThread().getClassLoader(). When you try to load the file using class loader, file will be always searched inside root folder on classpath. e.g
   Thread.currentThread().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("config.properties") and Thread.currentThread().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("/config.properties") either way class loader will try to search file from root folder which is on class path or from root folder inside jar.
2. User getResourceAsStream("filename") on Class instance of a class. One can retrieve the class instance using ClassName.class or this.getClass(). When you try to load the file using class, file search will depend on how do you specify the file name. When you specify file "config.properties" this.getClass().getResourceAsStream("config.properties"), file will be searched inside same package as that of given class on which you are calling getResourceAsStream(). When you specify file like "/config.properties" given file will be searched from root folder which is on class path or from root folder inside jar.

Access resource / file from file location

  To access file form given path outside the class path, one need to make use of java.io.File .

File file = new File("filename with absolute path");
FileInputStream fStream = new FileInputStream(file);