Help! findResource isn't working!

Question

I'm at a complete loss.
In my classloader, I print out all the URLs of the ClassLoader (which extends URLClassLoader). When it prints them out, one of the URLs is:
file://D:/Resources/Factory.cfg
However, when I call classLoader.findResource( "Factory.cfg" ), it returns null. In fact, I even put the below code in (to be sure it wasn't a security issue):
//IN my classloader
public URL findResource(final String name)
    final URLClassLoader loader = this;
    AccessController.doPrivileged(new PrivilegedAction()
        public Object run()
            for ( Enumeration e = loader.getResources( name ); e.hasMoreElements(); )
                System.out.println( e.nextElement() ); //Nothing prints
}Still null!! Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

Ah, so you're saying if I add the file to the
classpath, it will never find it, but if I add the
folder, it WILL find it? Why is that?It's just like classpath. It's a list of places to look for things. You don't put all your classes on classpath, just the parent directories or jar files of their packages. You could write your own classloader that works the way you were thinking, but the idea behind a classpath (which is basically an array of URLs for one of those classloaders) is that it's a list of places to look for things.
Those URLs are where the classloader will look for the resource that has the name you give it.