Sure thing. The rest of the string are directory locations and because of work rules, I'm just filling in with fluff here. Always throws a FileNotFoundException. One other thing I forgot to mention, and may play a part, is on the old version we're running in Weblogic 8.1, new version is
Jboss 6.
String going into the URL -> Result in the exception thrown
\\server_name\share_name\dirA\sc\data\distrib\filename.xml -> \\server_nameshare_name\dirA\sc\data\distrib\filename.xml
\\\\server_name\\share_name\\dirA\\sc\\data\\distrib\\filename.xml -> \\server_nameshare_name\dirA\sc\data\distrib\filename.xml
//server_name/share_name/dirA/sc/data/distrib/filename.xml -> \\server_nameshare_name\dirA\sc\data\distrib\filename.xml
server_name\share_name\dirA\sc\data\disrib\filename.xml -> E:\jboss6\bin\server_name\share_name\dirA\sc\data\distrib\filename.xml (the only result that doesn't remove the slash between server and share, but of course it's pointing to a bad location)
\\server_name\\\\share_name\dirA\sc\data\distrib\filename.xml -> \\server_nameshare_name\dirA\sc\data\distrib\filename.xml (we've stuck up to 6 slashes in between server and share and it always removes them all)
So basically any time we do a \\server_name\share_name, no matter if we escape the \'s or not, it always removes just the slash(es) between the server and share. Everything else remains untouched (though if we escape the \'s it will return them as singles in the rest of the string).
The only time it doesn't remove a slash is if the string is a local file system. But then, our files don't reside locally so that doesn't do us much good.