Problem loading image (from JAR)

Question

Hi
I was wondering why this code works when running the app in my IDE, but not once exported in a JAR file:
public static BufferedImage loadDefaultCover()
          try
               return ImageIO.read(new File("./images/default.png"));
          }catch(IOException e)
               logger.severe("Failed loading default img: "+e.getMessage());
          return null;
     }     NOTE 1: The cover is located (project root)/images/default.png
NOTE 2: It works when I have a folder named images (with the image in it) next to the JAR.
NOTE 3: I tried:
return ImageIO.read(new File("images/default.png"));
return ImageIO.read(new File("/images/default.png"));Any ideas? Thanks!
Andrew
Edited by: Andrew_ on Jan 4, 2009 12:45 PM

Answer 1

You can't use File references to access resources in a jar file (technically, they are not presen in the file system but part of a zip file). Instead, you can load those resources via the classloader:
return ImageIO.read(getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("images/default.png"));