2.2. The Resource Interface

Spring’s Resource interface is meant to be a more capable interface for abstracting access to low-level resources. The following listing shows the Resource interface definition:

public interface Resource extends InputStreamSource {

    boolean exists();

    boolean isOpen();

    URL getURL() throws IOException;

    File getFile() throws IOException;

    Resource createRelative(String relativePath) throws IOException;

    String getFilename();

    String getDescription();
}

As the definition of the Resource interface shows, it extends the InputStreamSource interface. The following listing shows the definition of the InputStreamSource interface:

public interface InputStreamSource {

    InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException;
}

Some of the most important methods from the Resource interface are:

• getInputStream(): Locates and opens the resource, returning an InputStream for reading from the resource. It is expected that each invocation returns a fresh InputStream. It is the responsibility of the caller to close the stream.

• exists(): Returns a boolean indicating whether this resource actually exists in physical form.

• isOpen(): Returns a boolean indicating whether this resource represents a handle with an open stream. If true, the InputStream cannot be read multiple times and must be read once only and then closed to avoid resource leaks. Returns false for all usual resource implementations, with the exception of InputStreamResource.

• getDescription(): Returns a description for this resource, to be used for error output when working with the resource. This is often the fully qualified file name or the actual URL of the resource.

Other methods let you obtain an actual URL or File object representing the resource (if the underlying implementation is compatible and supports that functionality).

Spring itself uses the Resource abstraction extensively, as an argument type in many method signatures when a resource is needed. Other methods in some Spring APIs (such as the constructors to various ApplicationContext implementations) take a String which in unadorned or simple form is used to create a Resource appropriate to that context implementation or, via special prefixes on the String path, let the caller specify that a specific Resource implementation must be created and used.

While the Resource interface is used a lot with Spring and by Spring, it is actually very useful to use as a general utility class by itself in your own code, for access to resources, even when your code does not know or care about any other parts of Spring. While this couples your code to Spring, it really only couples it to this small set of utility classes, which serve as a more capable replacement for URL and can be considered equivalent to any other library you would use for this purpose.

TIP

The Resource abstraction does not replace functionality. It wraps it where possible. For example, a UrlResource wraps a URL and uses the wrapped URL to do its work.