On JRuby 1.7.17, File.realpath does the following when passed an absolute "classpath:/" path:
irb(main):001:0> File.realpath('classpath:/java/lang/String.class')
=> "/current/working/directory/classpath:/java/lang/String.class"
On JRuby 1.7.13 (which I happen to have handy because we haven't updated since that version):
irb(main):001:0> File.realpath('classpath:/java/lang/String.class')
=> "classpath:/java/lang/String.class"