A class describing the location of a file.
An instance of this class provides information for locating and accessing a file. The file location can be defined
- as a URL; this identifies a file in a unique way
- as a combination of base path and file name; if this variant is used, there may be an additional location step required in order to identify the referenced file (for instance, the file name may be interpreted as the name of a resource to be loaded from class path).
In addition, other properties are available which are also needed for loading or saving a file, like the encoding or the underlying {@link FileSystem}.
Instances of this class are immutable and thus can be safely shared between arbitrary components. {@link FileHandler} also uses an instance to referencethe associated file. Instances are created using a builder. {@link FileLocatorUtils} offers convenience methods for obtaining such abuilder.
@version $Id: FileLocator.java 1624601 2014-09-12 18:04:36Z oheger $
@since 2.0