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I'm utterly confused. There's an 'assets' folder in my project, but the AssetManager does not refer to this folder. So I have three questions:

First, where is the folder that AssetManager refers to?

Second, how do I put files into that folder?

Third, how do I access the files that I put into my project's 'assets' folder? (Corollary question: what is the purpose of this folder if it's not used by AssetManager?)

The docs completely fail to clarify these issues. Very frustrating.

Richard Eng
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4 Answers4

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There's an 'assets' folder in my project, but the AssetManager does not refer to this folder.

Yes, it does.

First, where is the folder that AssetManager refers to?

assets/ in your project.

Second, how do I put files into that folder?

That depends on your operating system. Most operating systems have "file managers" which support some sort of drag-and-drop mechanism for copying files. If you are using Eclipse, though, either drag-and-drop into Eclipse or be sure to press F5 to update Eclipse for the changes you made to the Eclipse project outside of Eclipse.

Third, how do I access the files that I put into my project's 'assets' folder?

Using AssetManager, or sometimes via file://android_asset/ Uri values (and note that it is android_asset, singular, while the project directory is assets/, plural -- very annoying).

So if I understand you correctly, I should not be doing: AssetManager mgr = getAssets();, which is giving me a completely different folder's contents.

Nope, just tried it. I'm still getting the wrong folder's contents, ie, not my project's 'assets' folder.

Then your project is seriously messed up. Many, many developers have this working perfectly fine.

For example:

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CommonsWare
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Using Android Studio, I had the same problem.

I tried to put my "assets" folder in "res", like it was when we used Eclipse.

But now it has moved to "src/main/assets". This is where you have to put your files.

See the accepted answer there: assets-folder-in-android-studio

Community
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Benjamin Piette
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You can drag the resources you want in your project to the /assets folder and access them via code by:

context.getAssets().open(YOUR_FILE_NAME);

context.getAssets() will simply return an AssetManager instance for your application package, from where you can access the files.

Hope it helps!

jcxavier
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  • So if I understand you correctly, I should not be doing: AssetManager mgr = getAssets();, which is giving me a completely different folder's contents. – Richard Eng Jan 17 '12 at 14:52
  • Nope, just tried it. I'm still getting the wrong folder's contents, ie, not my project's 'assets' folder. – Richard Eng Jan 17 '12 at 15:03
  • That's strange, it should be working just like that. I've used that method a couple of times and it never failed me. Maybe the problem is somewhere else? – jcxavier Jan 17 '12 at 15:11
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If you have the project file assets/foo.bar, then at runtime getAssets().open("foo.bar") will open that file.

Reuben Scratton
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  • But I tried to list the files in my project's 'assets' folder and got something completely different...AssetManager mgr = getAssets(); files = mgr.list(""); – Richard Eng Jan 17 '12 at 14:48