Question

In a particular program, I am passed a file: URL and I need to convert it to a URI object. Using the toURI method will throw a java.net.URISyntaxException if there are spaces or any other invalid characters in the URL.

For example:

URL url = Platform.getInstallURL();  // file:/Applications/Program
System.out.println(url.toURI());  // prints file:/Applications/Program

URL url = Platform.getConfigurationURL();  // file:/Users/Andrew Eisenberg
System.out.println(url.toURI());  // throws java.net.URISyntaxException because of the space

What is the best way of performing this conversion so that all special characters are handled?

Answer 1

I guess the best way would be to remove deprecated File.toURL() which is usually responsible for producing these incorrect URLs.

If you can’t do it, something like this may help:

public static URI fixFileURL(URL u) {
    if (!"file".equals(u.getProtocol())) throw new IllegalArgumentException();
    return new File(u.getFile()).toURI();
}