Bundling images in a JAR file and speed problems

[Holywhippet]

I'm trying to deploy an application I've written in a JAR file. Part of the application loads in images to use as button icons. However, when I specify the path to the images I have to specify some kind of absolute path like c:\images\image.gif or /images/image.gif. That isn't an option for the JAR file version where the image files are inside of it. I tried using images/image.gif but it didn't work.

Also, my application is producing a PDF file after reading data through an ODBC connection. If I run the application by itself then all is well. If I run it after it's been put in the JAR file, the application works but takes about ten times as long to run.

Any ideas?

[CornedBee]

Use the class loader's getRessource function, it can load from within a JAR file.

[Holywhippet]

I've tried that. I've been following the examples here: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutor...misc/icon.html

None of them work for me. I've got the right version of the JRE but it just won't load the images no matter what.

[Andy_Hollywood]

Here is code that will attemot to load from an external file, then a JAR'd file if it can't be found in the first case, one issue we've had with it is that repeatedly loading teh images is time consuming, adding a weak hashmap to store the name vs image in means you can store them all and retreive them easier next time...

	private static BufferedImage loadImage(String name) {
		InputStream in;
	     
		// First try the classloader
		in = ImageLoader.class.getResourceAsStream(name); 
	  
		// check to see 
		if(in == null) {
			// Are we instead looking at a filename?
			try {
				FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(name);
		    // 	It's open!
				in = fis;
			} catch(FileNotFoundException foe) {
		    // 	we give up!
				return null;
			}
		}
		 
		if(in != null) {
			try {
				try {
					return ImageIO.read(in);	
				} finally {
					in.close();
				}
			} catch (IOException e) {
				e.printStackTrace();
			}
		}
		return null;
	}

[Holywhippet]

Thanks that code works fine for me. The images aren't loaded very often and there are only about five of them so I won't need a hashmap.

Thanks again.