Question

import java.io.File;
class AttriDemo{

    public static void main(String args[]){
        File f1 = new File("FileIO/file.txt");
        System.out.println("File name           : " + f1.getName());
        System.out.println("File path           : " + f1.getPath());
        System.out.println("File AbsPath        : " + f1.getAbsolutePath());
        System.out.println("File parent         : " + f1.getParent());
        f1.setWritable(true);
        if(f1.canWrite())
        {
            System.out.println("File is Writeable");
        }
        else
        {
            System.out.println("File is not Writeable");
        }
        if(f1.canRead())
        {
            System.out.println("Is readable");
        }
        else
        {
            System.out.println("File is not readable");
        }
    }
}

I the file is readable and writable in real…

then I tried setting it to Writable explicitly but still the output shows it as the file is not writable!!

output:

....
The file is not writable.
The file is not readable.

---

File f1 = new File("D:/javaProgs/FileIO/AttriDemo.java");

doing this helps solve the problem.
but can someone explain how? I mean the file was in the same directory and the statements above were running just fine. e.g getName() getParent()

Answer 1

What’s fooling you is you can create a File object regardless of the path you specified exists or not and you can call all those getParent, getPath functions on that object.

You can create a File object that’s not backed by a real file for various reasons like to check if it exists or to create a file specified by that objects path and name.

You can use File.exists() to see if file really exists on file system.