CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javasearch
Gurkmeja101
Gurkmeja101

Reputation: 662

Searching for a specific file given a directory and filename, going down a directory and sending it's path

I've looked at Recursively list files in Java but this doesn't seem to solve my problem. I've tried implementing it the way the answers have shown in this question but I my program still doesn't seem to work the way I want it to. It still doesn't "go down" the level if it finds a directory and sends that new directory path as an argument to check if file exists there.

I'm trying to get my class FileFinder to work. Given a filename and a directory to start searching from I want to search and find the file with the filename.

I've created a sort of test directory in /Users/Name/Documents/testing/. There is a file called "test.py" in one of the 3 directories under /Documents/testing/. But my program won't find the file. If I however give the method the proper directory like /Documents/testing/correctDir/ it does find and print the file and it's path.

So I think my problem is when I find a directory the call to fileFinder doesn't work like it should. Am I dealing with "AbsolutePath" wrong in that line?

Here's the code:

import java.io.*;
public class FileFinder {
    String fileFinder(String fileName, String root){
        String pathToFile = "";
        File rootDir = new File(root);
        File[] files = rootDir.listFiles();
        for(File f:files){
            if(f.isDirectory()){
                //System.out.println(f.getAbsolutePath());
                fileFinder(fileName,f.getAbsolutePath());
            }
            else if(f.getName().equals(fileName)){
                pathToFile = f.getAbsolutePath();
            }
        }
        return pathToFile;
    }
}

Upvotes: 0

Views: 87

Answers (1)

vagelis
vagelis

Reputation: 334

You have made two mistakes: first, you do not set pathToFile in the case of the recursive call to fileFinder. Second, you do not break the for loop when you have actually found the file in the directory you are currently looking in. Here's your code with the corrections, I've tested it and it works correctly:

String fileFinder(String fileName, String root){
    String pathToFile = "";
    File rootDir = new File(root);
    File[] files = rootDir.listFiles();
    for(File f:files){
        if(f.isDirectory()){
            //System.out.println(f.getAbsolutePath());
            pathToFile = fileFinder(fileName,f.getAbsolutePath());
        }
        else if(f.getName().equals(fileName)){
            pathToFile = f.getAbsolutePath();
        }
        if (!pathToFile.isEmpty())
          break;
    }
    return pathToFile;
}

Upvotes: 1

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