How to load/reference a file as a File instance from the classpath

Question

I have a file that is in my classpath, e.g. com/path/to/file.txt. I need to load or reference this file as a java.io.File object. The is because I need to access the file using java.io.RandomAccessFile (the file is large, and I need to seek to a certain byte offset). Is this possible? The constructors for RandomAccessFile require a File instance or String (path).

If there's another solution to seek to a certain byte offset and read the line, I'm open to that as well.

Answer 1

Try getting hold of a URL for your classpath resource:

URL url = this.getClass().getResource("/com/path/to/file.txt") 

Then create a file using the constructor that accepts a URI:

File file = new File(url.toURI()); 

Answer 2

This also works, and doesn't require a /path/to/file URI conversion. If the file is on the classpath, this will find it.

File currFile = new File(getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("the_file.txt").getFile());