Open a file from the same package

Question

I want to open help.chm file when click on the help button. At present , it is opened from the desktop when click help button. I copied and paste the file in one of the packages in my project. Is there a way to open this file from this package?

This is what I did to open the file from desktop

private void helpActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt)    
{                                            
    try
    {


         Runtime.getRuntime().exec("hh.exe C:/Users/toshiba/Desktop/help2.chm");
    }    
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        ex.printStackTrace();
        System.out.println(ex.getMessage());
    }            
}         

Answer 1

Use getResourceAsStream(String name) or getResources(String name) and provide the package name and resource name separated and prefixed by '/'.

For example if the resource is in the package Test:

/Test/help.chm:

Inside the class which you want to access the resource from you'd do (getResourceAsStream(String name)):

InputStream is=getClass().getResourceAsStream("/Test/help.chm");

or using getResources(String name):

URL file=getClass().getResource("/Test/help.chm");

for further help have a look at this great tutorial.

Answer 2

if your file is inside jar package you could get url in this way:

URL resource = getClass().getResource("yourFile.chm");
System.out.println("URL to resource: " + resource );

or you can try something like:

//it return the relative path 

ResourcesLoader.class.getClassLoader().getResource("package1/resources/repository/yourFile.chm").toString(); // if file is inside package