Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition

Name

File

Synopsis

This class supports a platform-independent definition of file and directory names. It also provides methods to list the files in a directory; check the existence, readability, writability, type, size, and modification time of files and directories; make new directories; rename files and directories; delete files and directories; and create and delete temporary and lock files. The constants defined by this class are the platform-dependent directory and path-separator characters, available as a String and a char.

getName( ) returns the name of the File with any directory names omitted. getPath( ) returns the full name of the file, including the directory name. getParent( ) and getParentFile( ) return the directory that contains the File; the only difference between the two methods is that one returns a String, while the other returns a File. isAbsolute( ) tests whether the File is an absolute specification. If not, getAbsolutePath( ) returns an absolute filename created by appending the relative filename to the current working directory. getAbsoluteFile( ) returns the equivalent absolute File object. getCanonicalPath( ) and getCanonicalFile( ) are similar methods: they return an absolute filename or File object that has been converted to its system-dependent canonical form. This can be useful when comparing two File objects to see if they refer to the same file or directory. In Java 1.4 and later, the toURI( ) method returns a java.net.URI object that ...