Java 7 for Absolute Beginners

CHAPTER 8 ■ WRITING AND READING FILES

Listing 8-8. Creating a directory

package com.apress.java7forabsolutebeginners.examples;

import java.io.File;

public class FileTest {

public static void main(String[] args) {

String testDirectoryName = "C:" + File.separator + "test";

File testDirectory = new File(testDirectoryName);

try {

testDirectory.mkdir();

} catch (Exception e) {

System.out.println("Couldn't create a directory called "

+ testDirectoryName);

System.exit(1);

}

System.out.println("Created a directory called " + testDirectoryName);

}

}

Note that we use the mkdir method rather than the createNewFile method. Windows, requires that

we give special permission to write into the root of the C: drive. Any attempt to create a file called

C:\test on the system would fail. (If we change the path to C:\temp\test, we would get a file called test

(with no extension) in our test directory.) However, we can create a new directory as a child of the root

directory, so the mkdir method works.

You can also create multiple directories, in the form of a longer path to a particular location.

Suppose we want to create a directory called C:\test\test2\test3. We can use the mkdirs method (note

the s on the end) to do so, as shown in Listing 8-9 (with the line that specifies the path and the mkdirs

line highlighted).

Listing 8-9. Creating multiple directories

package com.apress.java7forabsolutebeginners.examples;

import java.io.File;

public class FileTest {

public static void main(String[] args) {

String testDirectoryName = "C:" + File.separator + "test" +

File.separator + "test2" + File.separator + "test3";

File testDirectory = new File(testDirectoryName);

try {

testDirectory.mkdirs();

} catch (Exception e) {

System.out.println("Couldn't create a directory called "

+ testDirectoryName);

System.exit(1);

}