Why is there an error when I try to load an image?-CodePudding

So, I have made a class called TileDrawer.java, which is supposed to load in a BufferedImage with the following code:

BufferedImage spriteSheet = null;    

public void initSpriteSheet() {
        try {
                this.spriteSheet = ImageIO.read(new File("resources\\spritesheet.png"));
        } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
        }
}

but when I try to run the method after initializing the object, it gives me this error:

javax.imageio.IIOException: Can't read input file!

This is my current full code for the TileDrawer class:

package mainGame;
        
//imports
                
public class TileDrawer {
        BufferedImage spriteSheet = null;    
                
         
        public void initSpriteSheet() {
                try {
                        this.spriteSheet = ImageIO.read(new File("resources\\spritesheet.png"));
                } catch (IOException e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                }
        }        
        
        //irrelevant methods were here
}

and I also have this class, called GamePanel with the following code:

package mainGame;

//imports

public class GamePanel extends JPanel implements Runnable {
        
        Thread gameThread;
        
        TileDrawer tileDrawer = new TileDrawer();

        //vars
        
        public GamePanel() {} //game panel
        
        public void startGameThread() {
                tileDrawer.initSpriteSheet(); //  <---  here                                                     
                gameThread = new Thread(this);
                gameThread.start();
        }
                 
        @Override
        public void run() {
                //stuff to make a functioning loop

                while (gameThread != null) {
                        
                        //more loop stuff

                        if (delta >= 1) { //delta is only used to cap the framerate

                                update();
                                repaint();
                                
                                //even more loop stuff
                        }
                }
        }

        public void update() {
                //update stuff here
        }

        protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {

                super.paintComponent(g);

                Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g;

                //drawing stuff goes here

                g2.dispose();

        }
}

Some background info:

I am using Debian Linux
The directory looks like this:

MyGame
|------build
|      |------(Compiled java files)
|------src
|      |------Main.java (irrelevant)
|      |------GamePanel.java
|      |------TileDrawer.java
|      |------resources
|      |      |------spriteSheet.png

I am not using an IDE to compile my code, I am simply using these commands:

cd /home/{my username}/MyGame/
javac -d ./build src/Main.java src/GamePanel.java src/TileDrawer.java
cd build
java mainGame.Main

All of these things I tried, but none of them worked when I tried to implement them:

changing the file path into singular normal slashes
changing the file path into singular normal slashes and putting one at the front
using a normal Image file instead of a BufferedImage
putting the image file into the same directory as the java file

Any help on how to fix my problem would be greatly appreciated.

CodePudding user response：

Thanks everyone for all the help! If anyone sees this in the future, here is what I changed to make it work.

First, I moved the resource folder out of the src folder and into the root folder so it could be accessed (thanks to Jorge Campos for that).

Then, I loaded in the image as a resource instead of a file, and I fixed the capitalization error. (thanks to Hovercraft Full Of Eels and 67af7af3-67f3-48bf-98c5-d9155c for that, respectively).

In the URL, I changed the \\'s into /'s, and added one in front of it.

In total, I changed this:

this.spriteSheet = ImageIO.read(new File("resources\\spritesheet.png"));

Into this:

this.spriteSheet = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResourceAsStream("/resources/spriteSheet.png"));

and I moved the resources folder into the root folder.

Once again, thank you all for your help!

note: the 'this.' in the above code examples in unnecessary, but it works either way.