CODEWITHSUNDEEP
java
JmRag
JmRag

Reputation: 1459

Weird behavior of File.pathseperator java

I am developing a program in Java that associates with a file, so I useFile.separator in order to manage it.

The weird fact is that everywhere I call it, it returns the \ as it should since I am working on Windows except in the last function I use it. There, it returns the ;. I'll give you a piece of my code although I believe it won't help much. Is there anything else I should know to fix the problem? 

 System.out.println("File:" +source+"\n");

     String filename= f.getName().substring(f.getName().lastIndexOf(File.pathSeparator)+1,f.getName().length());//here at printing I get /
     System.out.println("Filename:" +filename+"\n");

     InputStream is = null;
     OutputStream os = null;
     try {
            is = new FileInputStream(source);
            os = new FileOutputStream(output+ File.pathSeparator + filename);//here I get ;
            byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
            int length;
            while ((length = is.read(buffer)) > 0) {
                os.write(buffer, 0, length);
            }
        } finally {
            is.close();
            os.close();
        }

Upvotes: 3

Views: 104

Answers (1)

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1501926

No, File.pathSeparator is ; on Windows. For example, you might have:

PATH=c:\Utils;c:\SomethingElse

File.pathSeparator is ; on Windows and : on Unix.

You're thinking of File.separator which would be \ on Windows and / on Unix.

Here's a simple way of seeing that:

import java.io.File;

public class Test {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        System.out.println("File.separator is " + File.separator);
        System.out.println("File.pathSeparator is " + File.pathSeparator);
    }    
}

(In your first sentence you even talk about File.separator - but then you use File.pathSeparator in the code.)

Note that if you use the methods within the File class, you typically don't need to specify the separator at all - it's hard to tell exactly what you're trying to achieve, but I suspect something like:

File file = new File(f.getName());
File outputFile = new File(output, file.getName());
// Now use outputFile

... would work better and be cleaner.

Upvotes: 8

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