Extended Universal Resource Library 0.2 review

Extended Universal Resource Library is a pure Java library for cleaner, more flexible file access in Java. How data is stored is c

License: MPL (Mozilla Public License) File size: 323K Developer: Yarda Tulach

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Extended Universal Resource Library is a pure Java library for cleaner, more flexible file access in Java.

How data is stored is completely transparent to the client, since the library is meant to replace java.io.File.

It provides implementations for handling local files, Jar/Zip archives, and XML documents. (Implementations for CVS and FTP are available seperately.) Other storage providers can be written and plugged in.

It also provides a merged filesystem implementation that allows multiple hierarchies to appear as one and to override each other in a controlled way. Other features include notification of changes to files, and support for attaching (dynamically updatable) actions to file objects.

Filesystems are an abstraction on top of java.io.File (in the case of local files), that provide a number of useful things:

File storage is completely abstracted - third parties can create support for access to file-like objects stored in an arbitrary manner, such as in a database, or in a version control system.
Built-in support for ZIP/JAR archives and XML-based filesystems and the ability to transparently use other filesystems supported by NetBeans (such as the FTP filesystem) by adding the necessary classes
Supports listening for change events if a file is externally modified
Ability to add arbitrary "status" data to a file object and be notified of changes on it
Support for actions on file objects, allowing you to define what actions are possible on a given file (and dynamically update these), and then expose those actions through your user interface.