Converting Java file:// URL to File(…) path, platform independent, including UNC paths

Question

I am developing a platform independent application. I am receiving a file URL*. On windows these are:

• file:///Z:/folder%20to%20file/file.txt

Answer 1

Building on @SotiriosDelimanolis's comment, here is a method to deal with URLs (such as file:...) and non-URLs (such as C:...), using Spring's FileSystemResource:

public FileSystemResource get(String file) {
    try {
        // First try to resolve as URL (file:...)
        Path path = Paths.get(new URL(file).toURI());
        FileSystemResource resource = new FileSystemResource(path.toFile());
        return resource;
    } catch (URISyntaxException | MalformedURLException e) {
        // If given file string isn't an URL, fall back to using a normal file 
        return new FileSystemResource(file);
    }
}