Efficient and cross platform way of loading images in Java

Question

I am learning to create game in Java and requires loading several images in before animating them. This is what I am doing now:

bg = new ImageIcon(System.getProperty("user.dir")+"/src/img/bg.jpg").getImage();

But clearly it has many disadvantages. For a start, it is long and ugly looking and I suspect, slow. Additionally, the forward slashes "/" would only work on Mac or Linux, where as on windows, it would use back slashes.

EDIT: As corrected by Samuel Rossille below, forward slash "/" in fact do work on windows.

I was wondering are there anyway of loading images, that are in the application directory, and won't be changed, in a more elegant fashion, as well as being cross-platform?

What about loading text files? Are they any different?

Answer 1

See the info. on embedded resources. Note that most methods & constructors that accept a File will also accept an InputStream or URL. Embedded resources are read only.

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On the matter of files (in the rare instance you might be using them and have to form the path from a String).

String fileSep = System.petProperty("file.separator");
bg = new ImageIcon(System.getProperty("user.dir")+
    fileSep+
    "src"+
    fileSep+
    "img"+
    fileSep+
    "bg.jpg").getImage();

This is one way to get a directory path that uses the correct separator for the file-system. The File class also offers handy constructors like new File(parent,child) that will insert the correct separator.

As an aside, I strongly feel that all the methods & constructors in the J2SE that accept a String intended to represent a File path should be deprecated. If it needs a File, give it a File and be done with it.