open a pdf file located inside a jar file.

[Sammy Bill]

Hello,

I packed my swing application into an executable jar file.

I had a button that will open a pdf file located in a resources folder located in the root directory of the jar file.

the code I have in the jar file was

   
                        URL resource = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource("resources/User_Guide.pdf");
				File userGuideFile = null;
				try {
					userGuideFile = new File(resource.getPath());
					if (Desktop.isDesktopSupported())
					{
						Desktop desktop = Desktop.getDesktop();
						desktop.open(userGuideFile);
					}
				} catch (Exception e1) {
					e1.printStackTrace();
				}
 

when executing the jar file. I click the button that is supposed to launch the pdf file. i get the following exception

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: the file file:\c:\Desktop.jar!\resources\User_Guide.pdf doesn't exist.

any help?

the spelling of the file name is correct

[Sammy Bill]

I also tried to put the file in a server and just use:

File file = new File ( new URL("http://...............").getPath()).

but did not also work.

it says file does not exist.

[Rob Spoor]

You can't do this the easy way; all you can get is an InputStream to the resource.

So, create a temporary file, write the PDF resource to it, and open that:

if (Desktop.isDesktopSupported())   
{   
    Desktop desktop = Desktop.getDesktop();   
    InputStream resource = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource("resources/User_Guide.pdf");
    try
    {
        File file = File.createTempFile("User_Guide", ".pdf");
        file.deleteOnExit();
        OutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(file);
        try
        {
            // copy contents from resource to out
        }
        finally
        {
            out.close();
        }
        desktop.open(userGuideFile);   
    }   
    finally
    {
        resource.close();
    }
}