How to pass a file path which is in assets folder

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Closed 7 years ago.

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Android - How to determine the Absolute path for specific file from Assets?

I am trying to pass a file to File(String path) class. Is there a way to find absolute path of the file in assets folder and pass it to File(). I tried file:///android_asset/myfoldername/myfilename as path string but it didnt work. Any idea?

Answer 1

Unless you unpack them, assets remain inside the apk. Accordingly, there isn't a path you can feed into a File. The path you've given in your question will work with/in a WebView, but I think that's a special case for WebView.

You'll need to unpack the file or use it directly.

If you have a Context, you can use context.getAssets().open("myfoldername/myfilename"); to open an InputStream on the file. With the InputStream you can use it directly, or write it out somewhere (after which you can use it with File).

Answer 2

AFAIK, you can't create a File from an assets file because these are stored in the apk, that means there is no path to an assets folder.

But, you can try to create that File using a buffer and the AssetManager (it provides access to an application's raw asset files).

Try to do something like:

AssetManager am = getAssets();
InputStream inputStream = am.open("myfoldername/myfilename");
File file = createFileFromInputStream(inputStream);

private File createFileFromInputStream(InputStream inputStream) {

   try{
      File f = new File(my_file_name);
      OutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream(f);
      byte buffer[] = new byte[1024];
      int length = 0;

      while((length=inputStream.read(buffer)) > 0) {
        outputStream.write(buffer,0,length);
      }

      outputStream.close();
      inputStream.close();

      return f;
   }catch (IOException e) {
         //Logging exception
   }

   return null;
}

Let me know about your progress.