Loading velocity template inside a jar file

Question

I have a project where I want to load a velocity template to complete it with parameters. The whole application is packaged as a jar file. What I initially thought of doing

Answer 1

Unless JAR is exploded, you can't read the resource in JAR as file. Use an input stream.

See following code snippets,

    InputStream input = classLoader.getResourceAsStream(fileName);
    if (input == null) {
        throw new ConfigurationException("Template file " +
                fileName + " doesn't exist");           
    }

    InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(input);            
        Writer writer = null;

        try {
            writer = new OutputStreamWriter(output);        

            // Merge template
            if (!engine.evaluate(context, writer, fileName, reader)) 
                ......