Spring - UrlResource

UrlResource

UrlResource wraps a java.net.URL and can be used to access any object that is normally accessible with a URL, such as files, an HTTP target, an FTP target, and others. All URLs have a standardized String representation, such that appropriate standardized prefixes are used to indicate one URL type from another. This includes file: for accessing filesystem paths, http: for accessing resources through the HTTP protocol, ftp: for accessing resources through FTP, and others.

A UrlResource is created by Java code by explicitly using the UrlResource constructor but is often created implicitly when you call an API method that takes a String argument meant to represent a path. For the latter case, a JavaBeans PropertyEditor ultimately decides which type of Resource to create. If the path string contains well-known (to it, that is) prefix (such as classpath:), it creates an appropriate specialized Resource for that prefix. However, if it does not recognize the prefix, it assume the string is a standard URL string and creates a UrlResource.