loading files contained within app jar file

[thorne_]

Hi all,

I'm writing an application that needs to load certain files based on a parameter passed into it.

This works fine when testing locally as i just build the uri based on that parameter (eg. "c:/workspace/PARAMETER/allfiles/") and load all files in that location.

However now i need to deploy the app as a jar file file on a jboss server and am unsure whether i can manipulate the file structure within a jar to achieve the same thing?

(For anybody interested the files are Drools drl files and each 'list' represents a different rulebase, theoretically there will be unlimited rulebases)

So can anybody advise me on the best approach to loading a specific list of files within a jar based on a passed in parameter?

Thanking you

[OrangeDog]

Use a variety of getResource...() method to load things from the classpath. (preferred)
Manipulate jars directly using java.util.jar package.

[thorne_]

regarding loading from the classpath - does this just load from the location that the .class object exist in?

[OrangeDog]

Info on classpath

When running from jars, there will be at least one ClassLoader that can search from the root of the jar. Most of the time the system class loader will do the job.