Package java.nio.file
The java.nio.file package defines classes to access files and file
systems. The API to access file and file system attributes is defined in the
java.nio.file.attribute
package. The java.nio.file.spi
package is used by service provider implementors wishing to extend the
platform default provider, or to construct other provider implementations.
Symbolic Links
Many operating systems and file systems have support for symbolic links. A symbolic link is a special file that serves as a reference to another file. For the most part, symbolic links are transparent to applications and operations on symbolic links are automatically redirected to the target of the link. Exceptions to this are when a symbolic link is deleted or renamed/moved in which case the link is deleted or removed rather than the target of the link. This package includes support for symbolic links where implementations provide these semantics. File systems may support other types that are semantically close but support for these other types of links is not included in this package.
Interoperability
The File
class defines the toPath
method to construct a Path
by converting
the abstract path represented by the java.io.File
object. The resulting
Path
can be used to operate on the same file as the File
object. The Path
specification provides further information
on the interoperability between Path
and java.io.File
objects.
Visibility
The view of the files and file system provided by classes in this package are guaranteed to be consistent with other views provided by other instances in the same Java virtual machine. The view may or may not, however, be consistent with the view of the file system as seen by other concurrently running programs due to caching performed by the underlying operating system and delays induced by network-filesystem protocols. This is true regardless of the language in which these other programs are written, and whether they are running on the same machine or on some other machine. The exact nature of any such inconsistencies is system-dependent and therefore unspecified.
Synchronized I/O File Integrity
The SYNC
and DSYNC
options are used when opening a file
to require that updates to the file are written synchronously to the underlying
storage device. In the case of the default provider, and the file resides on
a local storage device, and the seekable
channel is connected to a file that was opened with one of these
options, then an invocation of the write
method is only guaranteed to return when all changes made to the file
by that invocation have been written to the device. These options are useful
for ensuring that critical information is not lost in the event of a system
crash. If the file does not reside on a local device then no such guarantee
is made. Whether this guarantee is possible with other provider
implementations is provider
specific.
General Exceptions
Unless otherwise noted, passing a null
argument to a constructor
or method of any class or interface in this package will cause a NullPointerException
to be thrown. Additionally,
invoking a method with an array or collection containing a null
element
will cause a NullPointerException
, unless otherwise specified.
Unless otherwise noted, methods that attempt to access the file system
will throw ClosedFileSystemException
when invoked on
objects associated with a FileSystem
that has been
closed
. Additionally, any methods
that attempt write access to a file system will throw ReadOnlyFileSystemException
when invoked on an object associated
with a FileSystem
that only provides read-only
access.
Unless otherwise noted, invoking a method of any class or interface in
this package created by one provider
with a parameter that is an object created by another provider,
will throw ProviderMismatchException
.
Optional Specific Exceptions
Most of the methods defined by classes in this package that access the file system specify thatIOException
be thrown when an I/O
error occurs. In some cases, these methods define specific I/O exceptions
for common cases. These exceptions, noted as optional specific exceptions,
are thrown by the implementation where it can detect the specific error.
Where the specific error cannot be detected then the more general
IOException
is thrown.- Since:
- 1.7
-
InterfaceDescriptionAn object that configures how to copy or move a file.An object to iterate over the entries in a directory.An interface that is implemented by objects that decide if a directory entry should be accepted or filtered.FileVisitor<T>A visitor of files.An object that configures how to open or create a file.An object that may be used to locate a file in a file system.An interface that is implemented by objects that perform match operations on paths.A
DirectoryStream
that defines operations on files that are located relative to an open directory.An object that may be registered with a watch service so that it can be watched for changes and events.WatchEvent<T>An event or a repeated event for an object that is registered with aWatchService
.An event kind, for the purposes of identification.An event modifier that qualifies how aWatchable
is registered with aWatchService
.A token representing the registration of awatchable
object with aWatchService
.A watch service that watches registered objects for changes and events. -
ClassDescriptionThis class consists exclusively of static methods that operate on files, directories, or other types of files.Storage for files.Provides an interface to a file system and is the factory for objects to access files and other objects in the file system.Factory methods for file systems.The
Permission
class for link creation operations.A simple visitor of files with default behavior to visit all files and to re-throw I/O errors.Defines the standard event kinds. -
EnumDescriptionDefines access modes used to test the accessibility of a file.Defines the file tree traversal options.The result type of a
FileVisitor
.Defines the options as to how symbolic links are handled.Defines the standard copy options.Defines the standard open options. -
ExceptionDescriptionChecked exception thrown when a file system operation is denied, typically due to a file permission or other access check.Checked exception thrown when a file cannot be moved as an atomic file system operation.Unchecked exception thrown when an attempt is made to invoke an operation on a directory stream that is closed.Unchecked exception thrown when an attempt is made to invoke an operation on a file and the file system is closed.Unchecked exception thrown when an attempt is made to invoke an operation on a watch service that is closed.Runtime exception thrown if an I/O error is encountered when iterating over the entries in a directory.Checked exception thrown when a file system operation fails because a directory is not empty.Checked exception thrown when an attempt is made to create a file or directory and a file of that name already exists.Runtime exception thrown when an attempt is made to create a file system that already exists.Thrown when a file system operation fails on one or two files.Checked exception thrown when a file system loop, or cycle, is encountered.Runtime exception thrown when a file system cannot be found.Unchecked exception thrown when path string cannot be converted into a
Path
because the path string contains invalid characters, or the path string is invalid for other file system specific reasons.Checked exception thrown when an attempt is made to access a file that does not exist.Checked exception thrown when a file system operation, intended for a directory, fails because the file is not a directory.Checked exception thrown when a file system operation fails because a file is not a symbolic link.Unchecked exception thrown when an attempt is made to invoke a method on an object created by one file system provider with a parameter created by a different file system provider.Runtime exception thrown when a provider of the required type cannot be found.Unchecked exception thrown when an attempt is made to update an object associated with aread-only
FileSystem
.