How to read several resource files with the same name from different JARs?

Question

If there are two JAR files in the classpath, both containing a resource named \"config.properties\" in its root. Is there a way to retrieve both files similar to

Answer 1

You need ClassLoader.getResources(name)
(or the static version ClassLoader.getSystemResources(name)).

But unfortunately there's a known issue with resources that are not inside a "directory". E.g. foo/bar.txt is fine, but bar.txt can be a problem. This is described well in the Spring Reference, although it is by no means a Spring-specific problem.

Update:

Here's a helper method that returns a list of InputStreams:

public static List loadResources(
        final String name, final ClassLoader classLoader) throws IOException {
    final List list = new ArrayList();
    final Enumeration systemResources = 
            (classLoader == null ? ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader() : classLoader)
            .getResources(name);
    while (systemResources.hasMoreElements()) {
        list.add(systemResources.nextElement().openStream());
    }
    return list;
}

Usage:

List resources = loadResources("config.properties", classLoader);
// or:
List resources = loadResources("config.properties", null);