Develop Reference

Java - Delete file after reading from it

I am trying to figure out why my inputFile.delete() will not delete the file. After looking at numerous topics it looks like something is still using the file and hence it won't delete. But I can't figure it out. What am I missing??
File inputFile = new File("data/Accounts.txt");
File tempFile = new File("data/tmp.txt");
try {
tempFile.createNewFile();
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(inputFile));
BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(tempFile));
String line;
int i = 0;
for (User u : data) {
String toRemove = getIDByUsername(username);
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
if (line.contains(toRemove + " ")) {
line = (i + " " + username + " " + getStatusByUsername(username) + " " + password);
}
writer.write(line + "\n");
i++;
}
}
reader.close();
writer.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
ex.FileNotFound();
} catch (IOException ee) {
ex.IOException();
} finally {
inputFile.delete();
tempFile.renameTo(inputFile);
}

You can have that much shorter and easier by using java.nio:
public static void main(String[] args) {
// provide the path to your file, (might have to be an absolute path!)
Path filePath = Paths.get("data/Accounts.txt");
// lines go here, initialize it as empty list
List<String> lines = new ArrayList<>();
try {
// read all lines (alternatively, you can stream them by Files.lines(...)
lines = Files.readAllLines(filePath);
// do your logic here, this is just a very simple output of the content
System.out.println(String.join(" ", lines));
// delete the file
Files.delete(filePath);
} catch (FileNotFoundException fnfe) {
// handle the situation of a non existing file (wrong path or similar)
System.err.println("The file at " + filePath.toAbsolutePath().toString()
+ " could not be found." + System.lineSeparator()
+ fnfe.toString());
} catch (FileSystemException fse) {
// handle the situation of an inaccessible file
System.err.println("The file at " + filePath.toAbsolutePath().toString()
+ " could not be accessed:" + System.lineSeparator()
+ fse.toString());
} catch (IOException ioe) {
// catch unexpected IOExceptions that might be thrown
System.err.println("An unexpected IOException was thrown:" + System.lineSeparator()
+ ioe.toString());
}
}
This prints the content of the file and deletes it afterwards.
You will want to do something different instead of just printing the content, but that will be possible, too ;-) Try it...

I am trying to figure out why my inputFile.delete() will not delete the file.
That's because the old file API is crappy specifically in this way: It has no ability to tell you why something is not succeeding. All it can do, is return 'false', which it will.
See the other answer, by #deHaar which shows how to do this with the newer API. Aside from being cleaner code and the newer API giving you more options, the newer API also fixes this problem where various methods, such as File.delete(), cannot tell you the reason for why it cannot do what you ask.
There are many, many issues with your code, which is why I strongly suggest you go with deHaar's attempt. To wit:
You aren't properly closing your resources; if an exception happens, your file handlers will remain open.
Both reading and writing here is done with 'platform default encoding', whatever that might be. Basically, never use those FileReader and FileWriter constructors. Fortunately, the new API defaults to UTF_8 if you fail to specify an encoding, which is more sensible.
your exception handling is not great (you're throwing away any useful messages, whatever ex.FileNotFound() might be doing here) - and you still try to delete-and-replace even if exceptions occur, which then fail, as your file handles are still open.
The method should be called getIdByUsername
Your toRemove string is the same every time, or at least, the username variable does not appear to be updated as you loop through. If indeed it never updates, move that line out of your loop.

String to Text - Line Break instead of comma

I need help before I'm totally despaired :D
As you will see I tried it in different ways even if there are just a really few differences. My problem is that I have a string which I want (or have) to output. This means I need it in a text file. Not that big problem, eh? But the actual problem is that I want line breaks instead of commas. I know I could just replace them after the file is written but it's just unnecessary when there is another way.
The Output looks like this
[/rechtschreibung/_n, /rechtschreibung/_nauf, /rechtschreibung/_naus,
/rechtschreibung/_Ndrangheta, ....]
I want it to look like this
/rechtschreibung/_n
/rechtschreibung/_nauf
/rechtschreibung/_naus
/rechtschreibung/_Ndrangheta
Anyway even when I don't need this method later because I will store this and some other information into a database like sql. It will help me to build up the program step by step and learn some more Java ;)
So here is my code snippet
BufferedWriter bw = null;
//PrintWriter out
//= new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("foo.out")));
try {
bw = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("bfwr.txt"));
bw.write(test5.getWoerterListe().toString());
bw.newLine();
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
/*
try {
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new FileWriter("prwr.txt"));
out.print(test5.getWoerterListe());
out.close();
System.out.printf("Testing String");
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
*/
/*
try {
FileWriter test10 = new FileWriter("test.txt");
test10.write(test5.getWoerterListe().toString());
test10.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
*/
Please be nice to me :D
Assistance appreciated =)
EDIT #1
Code directly before first one.
Oberordner test2 = new Oberordner("http://www.duden.de/definition");
Unterordner test3 = new Unterordner(test2.getOberOrdner());
WoerterListe test5 = new WoerterListe(test3.getUnterOrdnerURL());
test5.setWoerterListe();
and from WoerterListe.java the really end part
public ArrayList<String> getWoerterListe(){
return WoerterListe;
}
Additional Information: the string is not stored in the code because there are tenthousands of words like '/rechtschreibung/*'
By the way the language here is german unfortunately I have to use german words =(

I'm not a Java developer and you didn't state what getWoerterListe() returns, but here's my guess.
getWoerterListe() probably return a list of strings, and the default behaviour of toString() in this case is to convert the list to comma seperated values. So instead of calling toString() on the list, loop through it and write out each line followed by a carriage return (or whatever Java uses to end lines).

Code:
String s = "[/rechtschreibung/_n, /rechtschreibung/_nauf, "
+ "/rechtschreibung/_naus, /rechtschreibung/_Ndrangheta, ....]";
String srp = s.replaceAll("\\[|\\]|\\.+" ,"");
String[] sp = srp.split(",");
for (int i = 0; i < sp.length; i++) {
System.out.println(sp[i].trim());
}
Output:
/rechtschreibung/_n
/rechtschreibung/_nauf
/rechtschreibung/_naus
/rechtschreibung/_Ndrangheta
Explanation:
I assumed [/rechtschreibung/_n, /rechtschreibung/_nauf, /rechtschreibung/_naus, /rechtschreibung/_Ndrangheta, ....] is a String. I removed all uncessary character like [ , ] , and any number of . form it. After that, I splited by , and print each element of splited string on the output.

reading variables buried in java exception handling

I am writing a function to take a text file and count how many lines it has while outputting the lines to an array of strings. Doing this I have several exceptions I need to look out for. The class function has several variables that should have a scope throughout the function but when I write a value to the function inside of an exception, the return statement cannot find it. I've moved the declaration around and nothing helps
The value returned "h5Files" "Might not have been initialized" Since I don't know how long the array will be I cannot initialize it to a certain length. I do this within the code and I need a way to tell the return statement that I now have a values
Here is the code
public String[] ReadScanlist(String fileIn){
int i;
String directory ="c:\\data\\"; // "\" is an illegal character
System.out.println(directory);
int linereader = 0;
String h5Files[];
File fileToRead = new File(directory + fileIn);
System.out.println(fileToRead);
try {
FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(fileToRead); // open this file
}
catch(FileNotFoundException exc) {
System.out.println("File Not Found");
}
try{
//read bytes until EOF is detected
do {
FileReader fr = new FileReader(fileToRead);// Need to convert to reader
LineNumberReader lineToRead = new LineNumberReader(fr); // Use line number reader class
//
while (lineToRead.readLine() != null){
linereader++;
}
linereader = 0;
lineToRead.setLineNumber(0); //reset line number
h5Files = new String[linereader];
while (lineToRead.readLine() != null){
h5Files[linereader] = lineToRead.readLine(); // deposit string into array
linereader++;
}
return h5Files;
}
while(i !=-1); // When i = -1 the end of the file has been reached
}
catch(IOException exc) {
System.out.println("Error reading file.");
}
try{
FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(fileToRead);
fin.close(); // close the file
}
catch(IOException exc) {
System.out.println("Error Closing File");
}
return h5Files;
}

Your code is very very odd. For example these two blocks make no sense:
try {
FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(fileToRead); // open this file
}
catch(FileNotFoundException exc) {
System.out.println("File Not Found");
}
try{
FileInputStream fin = new FileInputStream(fileToRead);
fin.close(); // close the file
}
catch(IOException exc) {
System.out.println("Error Closing File");
}
I don't know what you think they do, but besides the first one leaking memory, they do nothing at all. The comments are more worrying, they suggest that you need to do more reading on IO in Java.
Deleting those blocks and tidying the code a (moving declarations, formatting) gives this:
public String[] ReadScanlist(String fileIn) {
String directory = "c:\\data\\";
String h5Files[];
File fileToRead = new File(directory + fileIn);
try {
int i = 0;
do {
FileReader fr = new FileReader(fileToRead);
LineNumberReader lineToRead = new LineNumberReader(fr);
int linereader = 0;
while (lineToRead.readLine() != null) {
linereader++;
}
linereader = 0;
lineToRead.setLineNumber(0);
h5Files = new String[linereader];
while (lineToRead.readLine() != null) {
h5Files[linereader] = lineToRead.readLine();
linereader++;
}
return h5Files;
} while (i != -1);
} catch (IOException exc) {
System.out.println("Error reading file.");
}
return h5Files;
}
My first bone of contention is the File related code. First, File abstracts from the underlying OS, so using / is absolutely fine. Second, there is a reason File has a File, String constructor, this code should read:
File directory = new File("c:/data");
File fileToRead = new File(directory, fileIn);
But it should really be using the new Path API anyway (see below).
So, you declare h5Files[]. You then proceed to read the whole file to count the lines. You then assign h5Files[] to an array of the correct size. Finally you fill the array.
If you have an error anywhere before you assign h5Files[] you have not initialised it and therefore cannot return it. This is what the compiler is telling you.
I don't know what i does in this code, it is assigned to 0 at the top and then never reassigned. This is an infinite loop.
So, you need to rethink your logic. I would recommend throwing an IOException if you cannot read the file. Never return null - this is an anti-pattern and leads to all those thousands of null checks in your code. If you never return null you will never have to check for it.
May I suggest the following alternative code:
If you are on Java 7:
public String[] ReadScanlist(String fileIn) throws IOException {
final Path root = Paths.get("C:/data");
final List<String> lines = Files.readAllLines(root.resolve(fileIn), StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
return lines.toArray(new String[lines.size()]);
}
Or, if you have Java 8:
public String[] ReadScanlist(String fileIn) throws IOException {
final Path root = Paths.get("C:/data");
try (final Stream<String> lines = Files.lines(root.resolve(fileIn), StandardCharsets.UTF_8)) {
return lines.toArray(String[]::new);
}
}

Since I don't know how long the array will be I cannot initialize it
to a certain length.
I don't think an array is the correct solution for you then - not to say it can't be done, but you would be re-inventing the wheel.
I would suggest you use a LinkedList instead, something like:
LinkedList<String> h5Files = new LinkedList<>();
h5Files.add(lineToRead.readLine());
Alternatively you could re-invent the wheel by setting the array to an arbritary value, say 10, and then re-size it whenever it gets full, something like this:
h5Files = new String[10];
if (linereader = h5Files.size())
{
String[] temp = h5Files;
h5Files = new String[2 * linereader];
for (int i = 0; i < linereader; i++)
{
h5Files[i] = temp[i];
}
}
Either one of these solutions would allow you to initialize the array (or array alternative) in a safe constructor, prior to your try block, such that you can access it if any exceptions are thrown

Here is your problem. Please take a look on digested version of your code with my comments.
String h5Files[]; // here you define the variable. It still is not initialized.
try{
..................
do {
h5Files = new String[linereader]; // here you initialize the variable
} while(i !=-1); // When i = -1 the end of the file has been reached
..................
catch(IOException exc) {
// if you are here the variable is still not initialized
System.out.println("Error reading file.");
}
// you continue reading file even if exception was thrown while opening the file
I think that now the problem is clearer. You try to open the file and count lines. If you succeed you create array. If not (i.e. when exception is thrown) you catch the exception but still continue reading the file. But in this case you array is not initialized.
Now how to fix this?
Actually if you failed to read the file first time you cannot continue. This may happen for example if file does not exist. So, you should either return when first exception is thrown or just do not catch it at all. Indeed there is nothing to do with the file if exception was thrown at any phase. Exception is not return code. This is the reason that exceptions exist.
So, just do not catch exceptions at all. Declare your method as throws IOException and remove all try/catch blocks.

Check if file exists from string

This is the code I use when I try to read some specific text in a *.txt file:
public void readFromFile(String filename, JTable table) {
BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;
try {
bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filename));
String a,b,c,d;
for(int i=0; i<3; i++)
{
a = bufferedReader.readLine();
b = bufferedReader.readLine();
c = bufferedReader.readLine();
d = bufferedReader.readLine();
table.setValueAt(a, i, 0);
table.setValueAt(b, i, 1);
table.setValueAt(c, i, 2);
table.setValueAt(d, i, 3);
}
} catch (FileNotFoundException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
} finally {
//Close the reader
try {
if (bufferedReader != null) {
bufferedReader.close();
}
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
And it is called in this way:
readFromFile("C:/data/datafile.txt", table1)
The problem is the following: the 1st time I open the program the *.txt file I'm going to read does not exist, so I thought I could use the function exists(). I have no idea about what to do, but I tried this:
if(("C:/data/datafile.txt").exists()) {
readFromFile("C:/data/datafile.txt", table1)
}
It is not working because NetBeans gives me a lot of errors. How could I fix this?

String has no method named exists() (and even if it did it would not do what you require), which will be the cause of the errors reported by the IDE.
Create an instance of File and invoke exists() on the File instance:
if (new File("C:/data/datafile.txt").exists())
{
}

Note: This answer use classes that aren't available on a version less than Java 7.
The method exists() for the object String doesn't exist. See the String documentation for more information. If you want to check if a file exist base on a path you should use Path with Files to verify the existence of the file.
Path file = Paths.get("C:/data/datafile.txt");
if(Files.exists(file)){
//your code here
}
Some tutorial about the Path class : Oracle tutorial
And a blog post about How to manipulate files in Java 7
Suggestion for your code:
I'll point to you the tutorial about try-with-resources as it could be useful to you. I also want to bring your attention on Files#readAllLines as it could help you reduce the code for the reading operation. Based on this method you could use a for-each loop to add all the lines of the file on your JTable.

you can use this code to check if the file exist
Using java.io.File
File f = new File(filePathString);
if(f.exists()) { /* do something */ }

You need to give it an actual File object. You're on the right track, but NetBeans (and java, for that matter) has no idea what '("C:/data/datafile.txt")' is.
What you probably wanted to do there was create a java.io.File object using that string as the argument, like so:
File file = new File ("C:/data/datafile.txt");
if (file.exists()) {
readFromFile("C:/data/datafile.txt", table1);
}
Also, you were missing a semicolon at the end of the readFromFile call. Im not sure if that is just a typo, but you'll want to check on that as well.
If you know you're only ever using this File object just to check existence, you could also do:
if (new File("C:/data/datafile.txt").exists()) {
readFromFile("C:/data/datafile.txt", table1);
}

If you want to ensure that you can read from the file, it might even be appropriate to use:
if(new File("C:/data/datafile.txt").canRead()){
...
}
as a condition, in order to verify that the file exists and you have sufficient permissions to read from the file.
Link to canRead() javadoc

How to read/write String from/to .txt?

I've got some text in a text file. I want to read it from file (first string - first line in file etc.), do something with it and then write to another text file.
How to do it?

Apache Commons IOUtils:
String contents = FileUtils.readFileToString(file, "UTF-8");
FileUtils.writeStringToFile(file, contents, "UTF-8");
And the best way to find out how that is done internally (in case you are interested) is to look at the source code for these two methods.

java.util.Scanner -> use this for reading content from file(there are lots of other ways as mentioned by others,but i find this one the simplest.)
java.io.PrintWriter -> use for writing into file(other ways also possible,as mentioned above)

You exactly have to do what other folks have mentioned. But here I will be bit detailed and provide you with some code sample.
To open and read the file:
String fileName = "paper.txt"; // file to be opened
try {
Scanner fileData = new Scanner(new File(fileName));
while(fileData.hasNextLine()){
String line = fileData.nextLine();
line = line.trim();
if("".equals(line)){
continue;
} // end if
} // end while
fileData.close(); // close file
} // end try
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
// Error message
} // end catch
To write to the text file you can use the following code:
boolean fileOpened = true;
try {
PrintWriter toFile = new PrintWriter("paper.txt");
} // end try
catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
fileOpened = false;
// Error Message saying file could not be opened
} // end catch
if(fileOpened){
toFile.println("String to be added to the file");
toFile.close();
} // end if
I hope this will help you out to solve your problem.