Thread: Stupid thing can't find image icon right in front of it!!!

I had it imported into the project, yes.

I tried lots of things, including having the word images/ in the quotes.

It's showing in the thing that shows all the components of the package in Eclipse.

It's under a column called "Referenced Libraries".

Also, by any chance is the image being lost, as I have a JComboBox, that will show certain pictures when certain choices are selected. I have the JComboBox outside of the JSplitPane but still in the JFrame, and I have a JTextArea in one of the sides and it is supposed to have a label that is set to an icon on the other. When another option is selected, the previous picture is removed from the component, though it should be able to come back if selected again in the JComboBox, and a new one takes its place. This is done to keep from getting a build up off too many pictures that I don't want showing. This is kind of like a column in an online newspaper, not I'm not making an applet, where the story and the image change inside the JSplitPane when the user selects a different story in the JComboBox. That's kind of what it's like. Except the JLabel, set to the image, won't show, as the method that, very cleverly, will make a new ImageIcon from a file and also a description, which I pass it in the parameters. However, it is returning path not found. "image name".

I got the createImageIcon method from this: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutor...LabelDemo.java

Do I have to have the whole path name from the description in order for it to recognize the image if it isn't in the same scope as the program?

By description, I don't mean the parameter, I mean the thing that tells me where the file is and all that stuff when I click on the image and click "Properties" on the popup menu that comes when I click on it on my computer?

What's an absolute path?

Is it the entire long drawn out path with the folder C and everything

Ok, is the absolute path the file location? I have no clue what an absolute path is.

Ok, here are several examples of things I'm going to try.

Option One: "//images//myIcon.jpg"

Option Two: "//myIcon.jpg""

Option Three: "//projectName//myIcon.jpg"

Option Four: "\\projectName\\src\\subFolder\\Users\\me\\Downloa ds\\myIcon.jpg"

Option Five: Option four without the beginning \\

Option Six: Option Two without \\ at beginning

The absolute or relative paths can be navigated either using \\ or / in windows. The only reason you need \\ is because \ by itself signals the beginning of an escape character. The actual path you will get will only have one \ because you "escaped" out of the escape character.

System.out.println("C:\\"); // should print "C:\"
System.out.println("C:/"); // should print out "C:/"

An absolute path is the path that completely describes the location of the file starting from which partition it's in (say, C:\ in windows). A relative path is a path that describes the exact same location but relative from some point.

You can test to see if you're even finding the image:

Fiile theImageFile = new File("C:\image.png"); // obviously, your relative OR absolute path should replace the one I put
if(theImageFile.exists())
{
     System.out.println("I found the file!");
}
else
{
     System.out.println("I didn't find the file :(");
}

In eclipse, the startup folder is the base project folder. If you put your image right into the base project folder, you can just put the file name and it should find it (fyi, this is a relative path).

File theImageFile = new File("image.png"); // creates a file reference to image.png in the eclipse project startup folder

If your image is not located in exactly the same folder you're referencing from, you need to use "dots" to navigate upwards, then specifically spell out which folders to navigate back down.

File file1 = new File("../image.png"); // the image is in the folder above this one
File file2 = new File("../../Other Folder/image.png"); // the image is two folders up, then inside Other Folder
File file3 = new File("./image.png"); // image is in the same folder. Notice only one dot
File file4 = new File("image.png"); // same thing as file3

To clarify this a bit, absolute and relative paths have a somewhat different meaning when discussing a computer file system versus the package system the original poster is using (eg using Class.getResource()). Using the createImageIcon method (which uses Class.getResource()) a relative path is relative to the class, and the absolute path is relative to the package.

To reiterate my instructions I alluded to above for Eclipse:

1. Right click the Project and choose Import.
2. Select the file(s) of choice
3. This imports the files into the 'root' location of your project.
4. To access this image, for example say its name is "myImage.jpg", use the package absolute path: createImageIcon("/myImage.jpg", "Image description");
   
   • If you imported your image into the package the calling class resides in, remove the beginning slash
   • You can import an image into any package, but you must tell the JVM where the image is by using unix type paths ('../' to backtrack up a directory, '/' at the beginning to specify the root, './' to specify this directory, etc...)

Originally Posted by Brt93yoda

In java you can use forward slash, but you have to use 2 of them. EXAMPLE: "SRC//Images//icon.png"

This is incorrect, see my above post on why you don't need two forward slashes. Do note that using 2 of them doesn't cause any problems, though (actually, any number of them doesn't matter, so long as you have at least one).

// assuming you have a file named test.txt at C:/temp/test.txt
File file = new File("C:/temp/test.txt");
if(file.exists())
{
     System.out.println("single slash exists");
}
file = new File("C://temp//test.txt");
if(file.exists())
{
     System.out.println("double slash exists");
}
file = new File("C:////temp////test.txt");
if(file.exists())
{
     System.out.println("quadruple slash exists");
}

By the same token, the same applies to back-slash, just remember that back-slash is the escape character so they MUST come in pairs of 2.

// assuming you have a file named test.txt at C:/temp/test.txt
File file = new File("C:\\temp\\test.txt");
if(file.exists())
{
     System.out.println("single slash exists");
}
file = new File("C:\\\\temp\\\\test.txt");
if(file.exists())
{
     System.out.println("double slash exists");
}
file = new File("C:\\\\\\\\temp\\\\\\\\test.txt");
if(file.exists())
{
     System.out.println("quadruple slash exists");
}