Odd file.exists() problem

[O.B.]

I'm hoping there is just something syntactically wrong with the
following. I've verified that the file exists, but it keeps saying that
it doesn't. Thoughts?

String filename = "C:\\Java\\j2sdk1.4.2_10\\jre\\bin\\java";
File testFile = new File(filename);
if (testFile.exists()) {
System.out.println(filename + " exists.");
} else {
System.out.println(filename + " does not exist.");
}

 

[Oliver Wong]

I'm hoping there is just something syntactically wrong with the following.
I've verified that the file exists, but it keeps saying that it doesn't.
Thoughts?

String filename = "C:\\Java\\j2sdk1.4.2_10\\jre\\bin\\java";
File testFile = new File(filename);
if (testFile.exists()) {
System.out.println(filename + " exists.");
} else {
System.out.println(filename + " does not exist.");
}

Might you be thinking "java.exe" instead of "java"?

- Oliver

 

[O.B.]

I'm hoping there is just something syntactically wrong with the
following. I've verified that the file exists, but it keeps saying that
it doesn't. Thoughts?

String filename = "C:\\Java\\j2sdk1.4.2_10\\jre\\bin\\java";
File testFile = new File(filename);
if (testFile.exists()) {
System.out.println(filename + " exists.");
} else {
System.out.println(filename + " does not exist.");
}

Darn ... I hit send too early. My UNIX background got the best of me;
I'm missing ".exe". Argh!

 

[Daniel Dyer]

I'm hoping there is just something syntactically wrong with the
following. I've verified that the file exists, but it keeps saying that
it doesn't. Thoughts?

String filename = "C:\\Java\\j2sdk1.4.2_10\\jre\\bin\\java";
File testFile = new File(filename);
if (testFile.exists()) {
System.out.println(filename + " exists.");
} else {
System.out.println(filename + " does not exist.");
}

I think you are missing the file extension. Shouldn't it be "java.exe"?
If you are viewing the directory in Windows Explorer it hides known file
extensions by default.

Dan.

 

[Knute Johnson]

Darn ... I hit send too early. My UNIX background got the best of me;
I'm missing ".exe". Argh!

You've probably just typed something wrong somewhere. Since you are a
unix fan you can use the / instead of the \\.

 

[Raymond DeCampo]

You've probably just typed something wrong somewhere. Since you are a
unix fan you can use the / instead of the \\.

Only if you want to break any routine that depends on File.separator.

Ray

 

[Chris Uppal]

Only if you want to break any routine that depends on File.separator.

Any routine that depends carelessly on File.separator being the /only/
allowable path separator for the platform is already broken.

'/' has been a legal path separator on M$-ware since at least MS-DOS 3.

Incidentally, the Sun implementation of File normalises paths to use '\\'
throughout (on Windows). That's probably a good idea, since otherwise
File.separator would be totally useless rather than merely dangerously
misleading. But I don't know if it is documented to do so; if not then relying
on that aspect of its behaviour may not be justifiable in production code.

-- chris

 

[Dimitri Maziuk]

Chris Uppal sez:

Any routine that depends carelessly on File.separator being the /only/
allowable path separator for the platform is already broken.

'/' has been a legal path separator on M$-ware since at least MS-DOS 3.

Incidentally, the Sun implementation of File normalises paths to use '\\'
throughout (on Windows). That's probably a good idea, since otherwise
File.separator would be totally useless rather than merely dangerously
misleading. But I don't know if it is documented to do so; if not then relying
on that aspect of its behaviour may not be justifiable in production code.

I don't know what File normalises paths to, but IME
"some/path/some/file" works on both unix and winders whereas
"\\some\\path\\some\\file" is M$-only. Handy when you want to
read paths from a properties file.

Another undocumented trick is "java foo/bar/MyClass" -- you can
use tab-completion on unix command line.

Dima

 

[Roedy Green]

your file is called "java..exe" not "java"