Libgdx: how to pick a random texture?

Question

I'm trying to pick a random texture from a fodler placed in assets and use it but it's giving me errors. I'm doing so in the main game screen class

    final  File dir = new File("img");
    Random rand = new Random();
    File[] files = dir.listFiles();
    File file = files[rand.nextInt(files.length)];
    Image = new Texture(Gdx.files.internal(file.getPath()));

The error is

java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to get length of null array

to my knowledge this error should only be there if File[] files = dir.listFiles(); is null, and it isn't, currently two pictures are there. So what's happening?

I tried supplying the full path in the first line to img folder but to no avail. Plus I don't want to supply the full path anyway, it will change from device to another.

Answer 1

Use the FileHandle from libgdx. With Gdx.files.internal() you access to your assets folder.

Try this :

// Get directory
FileHandle dir = Gdx.files.internal("img");

// Get a random texture of dir
Texture randomTexture = new Texture(dir.list()[random.nextInt(dir.list().length)]);

Should work perfectly if your textures are in assets/img/

Hope it helps

Answer 2

Try to refresh (right click > refresh) the folder, which contains the files you want to load, within eclipse (or whatever else you are using). This solved many problems I had loading files so far.