I have a requirement where I have a path as C:\..\bar
for this the file bar gets created in the C drive when I use this path in SQL server.
Now on using Apache's FilenameUtils, The normalize method returns null as also documented.
C:\..\bar --> null
But I want
C:\bar for C:\..\bar
Is there any way in Java to get C:\bar for C:\..\bar
I know that .. would mean parent directory but SQL server still creates file the C drive.
The issue with using File or Path classes is that they make use of underlying Filesystem, which in my case is Unix but the path I will get will be windows absolute path.
So basically want to get rid of any redundancy like dots and slashes irrespective of the file system.
You can use getCanonicalFile.
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
File file = new File("C:\\..\\bar");
System.out.println(file.getCanonicalPath());
}
}
I am attempting to read from a file, however the console gives me this error.
Exception in thread "main" java.io.FileNotFoundException: dataEx.txt (The system cannot find the file specified)
This is the code that I am executing.
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class ReadTest {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
BufferedReader f = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("dataEx.txt" ));
}
}
This is my project structure
-project
-ReadTest.java
-dataEx.txt
Working directory
Your path is wrong, thus the reader can not find the file. Whereever you think your current working directory should be, that is not where it is.
Execute the following code to know where it is:
System.out.println(Paths.get("").toAbsolutePath());
That is the path to your current working directory. Then compare that result to your expectation. Realize that your expectation was wrong and correct the path to your file or your working directory settings.
It is hard to guess where your directory might be right now. Maybe in your bin folder, next to the .class files. You will see after executing the above code snippet.
NIO
By the way, not sure what exactly you plan on doing with that BufferedReader but you might be interested in the newer modern file API revolving around Files and Paths:
List<String> lines = Files.readAllLines(Paths.get("myFile.txt"));
It also has other neat utility methods for File IO, much better than the cumbersome File class and the clunky BufferedReader.
I am trying to write a program (for school homework) that will take a command-line argument to specify a directory, and for the time being, just print out the files in the directory. I have literally been looking at various answers and trying things out for hours now, and just have no idea what to do. Below, you will find my current code. when I open a CMD, and type java DirectoryFiles c:\ .
I get Error, could not find or load main class DirectoryFiles. I just used c:\ to see if I could get any directory to print out.
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
public class DirectoryFiles
{
/**
* Gets command line argument for directory to be used in program.
*
* #param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args)
throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException
{
String path = args[0];
File dir = new File(path);
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(dir);
if ((dir).isDirectory())
{
File[] files = dir.listFiles();
System.out.println(files);
}
}
}
Most likely you have only the source file (you didn't compile it).
Remember that:
Java is not an interpreter of a source file.
java command attempts to run an existing java class.
So you must start from compiling the source code into a Java class.
Then you can run it with java command.
I am trying to understand the way Java resolves relative path in while creating a File object.
OS used: Windows
For the below snippet, I am getting an IOException as it cannot find the path:
#Test
public void testPathConversion() {
File f = new File("test/test.txt");
try {
f.createNewFile();
System.out.println(f.getPath());
System.out.println(f.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(f.getCanonicalPath());
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
My understanding here is, Java treats the path provided as absolute and returns an error when the path does not exist. So it makes sense.
When I update the above code to use relative path:
#Test
public void testPathConversion() {
File f = new File("test/../test.txt");
try {
f.createNewFile();
System.out.println(f.getPath());
System.out.println(f.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(f.getCanonicalPath());
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
It creates a new file and provides the below output:
test\..\test.txt
C:\JavaForTesters\test\..\test.txt
C:\JavaForTesters\test.txt
In this case, my assumption is, even though the path provided doesn't exist, because the path contains "/../", java treats this as a relative path and creates the file in the user.dir. So this also makes sense.
But if I update the relative path as below:
#Test
public void testPathConversion() {
File f = new File("test/../../test.txt");
try {
f.createNewFile();
System.out.println(f.getPath());
System.out.println(f.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(f.getCanonicalPath());
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
Then I get IOException: Access is denied.
My questions are:
why "test/../test.txt" is treated as a relative path and creates the file in "user.dir" but"test/../../test.txt" returns an error? Where does it attempt to create the file for the path "test/../../test.txt"?
When the specified relative path is not found, the file seems to be created in the user.dir. So, it appears to me that the below two scenarios does the same thing:
//scenario 1
File f = new File("test/../test.txt");
f.createNewFile();
//scenario 2
File f = new File("test.txt");
f.createNewFile();
So is there a real world case where one would use scenario 1 instead of scenario 2?
I suppose I am missing something obvious here or have fundamentally misunderstood relative paths. I went through the Java docs for File and I am not able to find an explanation for this. There are quite a few questions posted in Stack Overflow regarding relative paths, but the ones I looked up were for specific scenarios and not exactly about how relative paths are resolved.
It will be great if someone could please explain me how this works or point to some related links?
There is a concept of a working directory.
This directory is represented by a . (dot).
In relative paths, everything else is relative to it.
Simply put the . (the working directory) is where you run your program.
In some cases the working directory can be changed but in general this is
what the dot represents. I think this is C:\JavaForTesters\ in your case.
So test\..\test.txt means: the sub-directory test
in my working directory, then one level up, then the
file test.txt. This is basically the same as just test.txt.
For more details check here.
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/io/File.html
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/pathOps.html
When your path starts with a root dir i.e. C:\ in windows or / in Unix or in java resources path, it is considered to be an absolute path. Everything else is relative, so
new File("test.txt") is the same as new File("./test.txt")
new File("test/../test.txt") is the same as new File("./test/../test.txt")
The major difference between getAbsolutePath and getCanonicalPath is that the first one concatenates a parent and a child path, so it may contain dots: .. or .. getCanonicalPath will always return the same path for a particular file.
Note: File.equals uses an abstract form of a path (getAbsolutePath) to compare files, so this means that two File objects for the same might not be equal and Files are unsafe to use in collections like Map or Set.
The working directory is a common concept across virtually all operating systems and program languages etc. It's the directory in which your program is running. This is usually (but not always, there are ways to change it) the directory the application is in.
Relative paths are ones that start without a drive specifier. So in linux they don't start with a /, in windows they don't start with a C:\, etc. These always start from your working directory.
Absolute paths are the ones that start with a drive (or machine for network paths) specifier. They always go from the start of that drive.
Relative paths can be best understood if you know how Java runs the program.
There is a concept of working directory when running programs in Java. Assuming you have a class, say, FileHelper that does the IO under
/User/home/Desktop/projectRoot/src/topLevelPackage/.
Depending on the case where you invoke java to run the program, you will have different working directory. If you run your program from within and IDE, it will most probably be projectRoot.
In this case $ projectRoot/src : java topLevelPackage.FileHelper it will be src.
In this case $ projectRoot : java -cp src topLevelPackage.FileHelper it will be projectRoot.
In this case $ /User/home/Desktop : java -cp ./projectRoot/src topLevelPackage.FileHelper it will be Desktop.
(Assuming $ is your command prompt with standard Unix-like FileSystem. Similar correspondence/parallels with Windows system)
So, your relative path root (.) resolves to your working directory. Thus to be better sure of where to write files, it's said to consider below approach.
package topLevelPackage
import java.io.File;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
public class FileHelper {
// Not full implementation, just barebone stub for path
public void createLocalFile() {
// Explicitly get hold of working directory
String workingDir = System.getProperty("user.dir");
Path filePath = Paths.get(workingDir+File.separator+"sampleFile.txt");
// In case we need specific path, traverse that path, rather using . or ..
Path pathToProjectRoot = Paths.get(System.getProperty("user.home"), "Desktop", "projectRoot");
System.out.println(filePath);
System.out.println(pathToProjectRoot);
}
}
Hope this helps.
On windows and Netbeans you can set the relative path as:
new FileReader("src\\PACKAGE_NAME\\FILENAME");
On Linux and Netbeans you can set the relative path as:
new FileReader("src/PACKAGE_NAME/FILENAME");
If you have your code inside Source Packages
I do not know if it is the same for eclipse or other IDE
Only slightly related to the question, but try to wrap your head around this one. So un-intuitive:
import java.nio.file.*;
class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Path p1 = Paths.get("/personal/./photos/./readme.txt");
Path p2 = Paths.get("/personal/index.html");
Path p3 = p1.relativize(p2);
System.out.println(p3); //prints ../../../../index.html !!
}
}
I went off of peter.petrov's answer but let me explain where you make the file edits to change it to a relative path.
Simply edit "AXLAPIService.java" and change
url = new URL("file:C:users..../schema/current/AXLAPI.wsdl");
to
url = new URL("file:./schema/current/AXLAPI.wsdl");
or where ever you want to store it.
You can still work on packaging the wsdl file into the meta-inf folder in the jar but this was the simplest way to get it working for me.
by running this...
File file = new File("Highscores.scr");
i keep getting this error, and i really don't know how to get around it.
the file is currently sitting in my source packages with my .java files.
I can quite easily read the file by specifying the path but i intend to run this on multiple computers so i need the file to be portable with the program.
this question isnt about reading the text file but rather specifying its location without using an absolute path .
ive searched for the answer but the answers i get are just "specify the name" and "specify the absolute path".
id post an image to make it more clear but i dont have the 10 rep to do so :/
how do i do this?
cheers.
The best way to do this is to put it in your classpath then getResource()
package com.sandbox;
import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URISyntaxException;
import java.net.URL;
public class Sandbox {
public static void main(String[] args) throws URISyntaxException, IOException {
new Sandbox().run();
}
private void run() throws URISyntaxException, IOException {
URL resource = Sandbox.class.getResource("/my.txt");
File file = new File(resource.toURI());
String s = FileUtils.readFileToString(file);
System.out.println(s);
}
}
I'm doing this because I'm assuming you need a File. But if you have an api which takes an InputStream instead, it's probably better to use getResourceAsStream instead.
Notice the path, /my.txt. That means, "get a file named my.txt that is in the root directory of the classpath". I'm sure you can read more about getResource and getResourceAsStream to learn more about how to do this. But the key thing here is that the classpath for the file will be the same for any computer you give the executable to (as long as you don't move the file around in your classpath).
BTW, if you get a null pointer exception on the line that does new File, that means that you haven't specified the correct classpath for the file.
As far as I remember the default directory with be the same as your project folder level. Put the file one level higher.
-Project/
----src/
----test/
-Highscores.scr
If you are building your code on your eclipse then you need to put your Highscores.scr to your project folder. Try that and check.
You can try to run the following sample program to check which is the current directory your program is picking up.
File f = new File(".");
System.out.println("Current Directory is: " + f.getAbsolutePath());