Question

This should be a really simple question but Google + my code isn’t working out.

In Eclipse on Windows, I want my program to look inside a certain folder. The folder is directly inside the Project folder, on the same level as .settings, bin, src, etc. My folder is called surveys, and that’s the one I want my File object to point at.

I don’t want to specify the full path because I want this to run on both of my computers. Just the path immediately inside my Project.

I’m trying this code but it isn’t working – names[] is coming back null. And yes I have some folders and test junk inside surveys.

File file = new File("/surveys");
    String[] names = file.list();

    for(String name : names)
    {
        if (new File("/surveys/" + name).isDirectory())
        {
            System.out.println(name);
        }
    }

I’m sure my mistake is within the String I’m passing to File, but I’m not sure what’s wrong?

Answer 1

In your question you didn’t specify what platform you are running on. On non-Windows, a leading slash signifies an absolute path. Best to remove the leading slash. Try this:

File file = new File("surveys");
System.out.println("user.dir=" + System.getProperty("user.dir"));
System.out.println("file is at: " + file.getCanonicalPath());
String[] names = file.list();

for(String name : names)
{
    if (new File(file, name).isDirectory())
    {
        System.out.println(name);
    }
}

Make sure the in your run configuration, the program is running from the projects directory (user.dir = <projects>)