In order to get a resource from the standalone jar and run directly when development, I have to use following code to get the true file path. I wonder if there is some better way…

utils.clj

(ns my.utils
  (:gen-class)
  (:use clojure.tools.logging
        clj-logging-config.log4j)
  (:use [clojure.string :only (split)])
  (import (java.util.zip ZipFile))
  (import (java.io File
                   FileInputStream
                   FileOutputStream
                   BufferedInputStream
                   BufferedOutputStream)))

;; find the path of the jar. via: http://stackoverflow.com/a/13276993/1364840
(defn this-jar
  "utility function to get the name of jar in which this function is invoked"
  []
  (-> (class *ns*)
      .getProtectionDomain .getCodeSource .getLocation .getPath))

; copy file from one file to another
(defn copy-file [input-stream output-stream]
  (with-open [in (BufferedInputStream. input-stream)
              out (BufferedOutputStream. output-stream)] 
    (loop [buf (make-array Byte/TYPE 1024)]
      (let [len (.read in buf)] 
        (when (pos? len)
          (.write out buf 0 len) 
          (recur buf))))))

; get path with the file name.
; deal with the condition when the file is in a jar.
(defn get-path [file-name]
  (let [jar-file (ZipFile. (File. (this-jar)))]
    (if-let [file-entry (.getEntry (ZipFile. (File. (this-jar))) file-name)]
      (let [splitted (split file-name #"\.")
            prefix (first splitted)
            suffix (str "." (second splitted))
            temp (File/createTempFile prefix suffix)]
        (.deleteOnExit temp)
        (with-open [input-stream (.getInputStream jar-file (.getEntry jar-file file-name))
                    output-stream (FileOutputStream. temp)]
          (copy-file input-stream output-stream))
        (.getAbsolutePath temp))
      (.getFile (clojure.java.io/resource file-name)))))