How to get the android Path string to a file on Assets folder?

Question

I need to know the string path to a file on assets folder, because I'm using a map API that needs to receive a string path, and my maps must be stored on assets folder

This is the code i'm trying:

    MapView mapView = new MapView(this);
    mapView.setClickable(true);
    mapView.setBuiltInZoomControls(true);
    mapView.setMapFile("file:///android_asset/m1.map");
    setContentView(mapView);

Something is going wrong with "file:///android_asset/m1.map" because the map is not being loaded.

Which is the correct string path file to the file m1.map stored on my assets folder?

Thanks

EDIT for Dimitru: This code doesn't works, it fails on is.read(buffer); with IOException

        try {
            InputStream is = getAssets().open("m1.map");
            int size = is.available();
            byte[] buffer = new byte[size];
            is.read(buffer);
            is.close();
            text = new String(buffer);
        } catch (IOException e) {throw new RuntimeException(e);}

Answer 1

AFAIK the files in the assets directory don't get unpacked. Instead, they are read directly from the APK (ZIP) file.

So, you really can't make stuff that expects a file accept an asset 'file'.

Instead, you'll have to extract the asset and write it to a seperate file, like Dumitru suggests:

  File f = new File(getCacheDir()+"/m1.map");
  if (!f.exists()) try {

    InputStream is = getAssets().open("m1.map");
    int size = is.available();
    byte[] buffer = new byte[size];
    is.read(buffer);
    is.close();


    FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(f);
    fos.write(buffer);
    fos.close();
  } catch (Exception e) { throw new RuntimeException(e); }

  mapView.setMapFile(f.getPath());