Develop Reference

Modify the feet to meters program to read from, write to a file. The input file named “feet.txt” and the output file “meters.txt” [duplicate]

I have an assignment for my CS class where it says to read a file with several test scores and asks me to sum and average them. While summing and averaging is easy, I am having problems with the file reading. The instructor said to use this syntax
Scanner scores = new Scanner(new File("scores.dat"));
However, this throws a FileNotFoundException, but I have checked over and over again to see if the file exists in the current folder, and after that, I figured that it had to do something with the permissions. I changed the permissions for read and write for everyone, but it still did not work and it still keeps throwing the error. Does anyone have any idea why this may be occurring?
EDIT: It was actually pointing to a directory up, however, I have fixed that problem. Now file.exists() returns true, but when I try to put it in the Scanner, it throws the FileNotFoundException
Here is all my code
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.*;
public class readInt{
public static void main(String args[]){
File file = new File("lines.txt");
System.out.println(file.exists());
Scanner scan = new Scanner(file);
}
}

There are a number situation where a FileNotFoundException may be thrown at runtime.
The named file does not exist. This could be for a number of reasons including:
The pathname is simply wrong
The pathname looks correct but is actually wrong because it contains non-printing characters (or homoglyphs) that you did not notice
The pathname is relative, and it doesn't resolve correctly relative to the actual current directory of the running application. This typically happens because the application's current directory is not what you are expecting or assuming.
The path to the file is is broken; e.g. a directory name of the path is incorrect, a symbolic link on the path is broken, or there is a permission problem with one of the path components.
The named file is actually a directory.
The named file cannot be opened for reading for some reason.
The good news that, the problem will inevitably be one of the above. It is just a matter of working out which. Here are some things that you can try:
Calling file.exists() will tell you if any file system object exists with the given name / pathname.
Calling file.isDirectory() will test if it is a directory.
Calling file.canRead() will test if it is a readable file.
This line will tell you what the current directory is:
System.out.println(new File(".").getAbsolutePath());
This line will print out the pathname in a way that makes it easier to spot things like unexpected leading or trailing whitespace:
System.out.println("The path is '" + path + "'");
Look for unexpected spaces, line breaks, etc in the output.
It turns out that your example code has a compilation error.
I ran your code without taking care of the complaint from Netbeans, only to get the following exception message:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: Uncompilable
source code - unreported exception java.io.FileNotFoundException; must
be caught or declared to be thrown
If you change your code to the following, it will fix that problem.
public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
File file = new File("scores.dat");
System.out.println(file.exists());
Scanner scan = new Scanner(file);
}
Explanation: the Scanner(File) constructor is declared as throwing the FileNotFoundException exception. (It happens the scanner it cannot open the file.) Now FileNotFoundException is a checked exception. That means that a method in which the exception may be thrown must either catch the exception or declare it in the throws clause. The above fix takes the latter approach.

The code itself is working correctly. The problem is, that the program working path is pointing to other place than you think.
Use this line and see where the path is:
System.out.println(new File(".").getAbsoluteFile());

Obviously there are a number of possible causes and the previous answers document them well, but here's how I solved this for in one particular case:
A student of mine had this problem and I nearly tore my hair out trying to figure it out. It turned out that the file didn't exist, even though it looked like it did. The problem was that Windows 7 was configured to "Hide file extensions for known file types." This means that if file appears to have the name "data.txt" its actual filename is "data.txt.txt".
Hope this helps others save themselves some hair.

I recently found interesting case that produces FileNotFoundExeption when file is obviously exists on the disk.
In my program I read file path from another text file and create File object:
//String path was read from file
System.out.println(path); //file with exactly same visible path exists on disk
File file = new File(path);
System.out.println(file.exists()); //false
System.out.println(file.canRead()); //false
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(file); // FileNotFoundExeption
The cause of the problem was that the path contained invisible \r\n characters at the end.
The fix in my case was:
File file = new File(path.trim());
To generalize a bit, the invisible / non-printing characters could have include space or tab characters, and possibly others, and they could have appeared at the beginning of the path, at the end, or embedded in the path. Trim will work in some cases but not all. There are a couple of things that you can help to spot this kind of problem:
Output the pathname with quote characters around it; e.g.
System.out.println("Check me! '" + path + "'");
and carefully check the output for spaces and line breaks where they shouldn't be.
Use a Java debugger to carefully examine the pathname string, character by character, looking for characters that shouldn't be there. (Also check for homoglyph characters!)

An easy fix, which worked for me, is moving my files out of src and into the main folder of the project. It's not the best solution, but depending on the magnitude of the project and your time, it might be just perfect.

Reading and writing from and to a file can be blocked by your OS depending on the file's permission attributes.
If you are trying to read from the file, then I recommend using File's setReadable method to set it to true, or, this code for instance:
String arbitrary_path = "C:/Users/Username/Blah.txt";
byte[] data_of_file;
File f = new File(arbitrary_path);
f.setReadable(true);
data_of_file = Files.readAllBytes(f);
f.setReadable(false); // do this if you want to prevent un-knowledgeable
//programmers from accessing your file.
If you are trying to write to the file, then I recommend using File's setWritable method to set it to true, or, this code for instance:
String arbitrary_path = "C:/Users/Username/Blah.txt";
byte[] data_of_file = { (byte) 0x00, (byte) 0xFF, (byte) 0xEE };
File f = new File(arbitrary_path);
f.setWritable(true);
Files.write(f, byte_array);
f.setWritable(false); // do this if you want to prevent un-knowledgeable
//programmers from changing your file (for security.)

Apart from all the other answers mentioned here, you can do one thing which worked for me.
If you are reading the path through Scanner or through command line args, instead of copy pasting the path directly from Windows Explorer just manually type in the path.
It worked for me, hope it helps someone :)

I had this same error and solved it simply by adding the src directory that is found in Java project structure.
String path = System.getProperty("user.dir") + "\\src\\package_name\\file_name";
File file = new File(path);
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file);
Notice that System.getProperty("user.dir") and new File(".").getAbsolutePath() return your project root directory path, so you have to add the path to your subdirectories and packages

You'd obviously figure it out after a while but just posting this so that it might help someone. This could also happen when your file path contains any whitespace appended or prepended to it.

Use single forward slash and always type the path manually. For example:
FileInputStream fi= new FileInputStream("D:/excelfiles/myxcel.xlsx");

What worked for me was catching the exception. Without it the compiler complains even if the file exists.
InputStream file = new FileInputStream("filename");
changed to
try{
InputStream file = new FileInputStream("filename");
System.out.println(file.available());
}
catch (Exception e){
System.out.println(e);
}

This works for me. It also can read files such txt, csv and .in
public class NewReader {
public void read() throws FileNotFoundException, URISyntaxException {
File file = new File(Objects.requireNonNull(NewReader.class.getResource("/test.txt")).toURI());
Scanner sc = new Scanner(file);
while (sc.hasNext()) {
String text = sc.next();
System.out.println(text);
}
}
}
the file is located in resource folder generated by maven. If you have other folders nested in, just add it to the file name like "examples/test.txt".

Files.move and Files.copy is throwing java.nio.file.FileAlreadyExistsException

I want to delete one file and rename another file with the old file but I am not able to move this file as java is throwing java.nio.file.FileAlreadyExistsException Following is the code snippet I am using
static void swapData(String origFilePath, String tempFilePath) throws IOException{
Path tempPath = FileSystems.getDefault().getPath(tempFilePath);
Path origPath = FileSystems.getDefault().getPath(origFilePath);
try{
String origFileName = null;
File origFileRef = new File(origFilePath);
if(Files.exists(origPath)){
origFileName = origFileRef.getName();
Files.delete(origPath);
if(Files.exists(origPath))
throw new IOException("cannot able to delete original file");
}
if(origFileName != null)
Files.move(tempPath, tempPath.resolveSibling(origFileName), StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);
}catch(IOException e){
throw e;
}
}
Here is the exception I am recieving
on Files.move(tempPath, tempPath.resolveSibling(origFileName), StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);
Also when I see this file in windows explorer, its thumbnail is present but cannot able to open it. I am not able to understand why it is happening and If I am using REPLACE_EXISTING, why it is throwing FileAlreadyExistsException exception.
Also I edited the previous question as it is not clearly stated.
Please help.
Anuj

Check if you have another thread holding on to the same file resource while running Files.move or Files.copy. I had the same exception and file access symptom and was able to resolve it after serializing the file accesses.
Also, by using the REPLACE_EXISTING option when doing Files.copy or Files.move, you no longer need to code the multiple steps of deleting the original file and then renaming the tmp, although Files.move or Files.copy are not guaranteed atomic. There is a ATOMIC_MOVE option, however I don't like the implementation specific guarantee where IOException could be thrown if a file exists already as described by the javadoc.
ATOMIC_MOVE : The move is performed as an atomic file system operation and all other options are ignored. If the target file exists then it is implementation specific if the existing file is replaced or this method fails by throwing an IOException. If the move cannot be performed as an atomic file system operation then AtomicMoveNotSupportedException is thrown. This can arise, for example, when the target location is on a different FileStore and would require that the file be copied, or target location is associated with a different provider to this object.

Output of Reading the file is not getting as Expected? [duplicate]

I have an assignment for my CS class where it says to read a file with several test scores and asks me to sum and average them. While summing and averaging is easy, I am having problems with the file reading. The instructor said to use this syntax
Scanner scores = new Scanner(new File("scores.dat"));
However, this throws a FileNotFoundException, but I have checked over and over again to see if the file exists in the current folder, and after that, I figured that it had to do something with the permissions. I changed the permissions for read and write for everyone, but it still did not work and it still keeps throwing the error. Does anyone have any idea why this may be occurring?
EDIT: It was actually pointing to a directory up, however, I have fixed that problem. Now file.exists() returns true, but when I try to put it in the Scanner, it throws the FileNotFoundException
Here is all my code
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.io.*;
public class readInt{
public static void main(String args[]){
File file = new File("lines.txt");
System.out.println(file.exists());
Scanner scan = new Scanner(file);
}
}

There are a number situation where a FileNotFoundException may be thrown at runtime.
The named file does not exist. This could be for a number of reasons including:
The pathname is simply wrong
The pathname looks correct but is actually wrong because it contains non-printing characters (or homoglyphs) that you did not notice
The pathname is relative, and it doesn't resolve correctly relative to the actual current directory of the running application. This typically happens because the application's current directory is not what you are expecting or assuming.
The path to the file is is broken; e.g. a directory name of the path is incorrect, a symbolic link on the path is broken, or there is a permission problem with one of the path components.
The named file is actually a directory.
The named file cannot be opened for reading for some reason.
The good news that, the problem will inevitably be one of the above. It is just a matter of working out which. Here are some things that you can try:
Calling file.exists() will tell you if any file system object exists with the given name / pathname.
Calling file.isDirectory() will test if it is a directory.
Calling file.canRead() will test if it is a readable file.
This line will tell you what the current directory is:
System.out.println(new File(".").getAbsolutePath());
This line will print out the pathname in a way that makes it easier to spot things like unexpected leading or trailing whitespace:
System.out.println("The path is '" + path + "'");
Look for unexpected spaces, line breaks, etc in the output.
It turns out that your example code has a compilation error.
I ran your code without taking care of the complaint from Netbeans, only to get the following exception message:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: Uncompilable
source code - unreported exception java.io.FileNotFoundException; must
be caught or declared to be thrown
If you change your code to the following, it will fix that problem.
public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
File file = new File("scores.dat");
System.out.println(file.exists());
Scanner scan = new Scanner(file);
}
Explanation: the Scanner(File) constructor is declared as throwing the FileNotFoundException exception. (It happens the scanner it cannot open the file.) Now FileNotFoundException is a checked exception. That means that a method in which the exception may be thrown must either catch the exception or declare it in the throws clause. The above fix takes the latter approach.

The code itself is working correctly. The problem is, that the program working path is pointing to other place than you think.
Use this line and see where the path is:
System.out.println(new File(".").getAbsoluteFile());

Obviously there are a number of possible causes and the previous answers document them well, but here's how I solved this for in one particular case:
A student of mine had this problem and I nearly tore my hair out trying to figure it out. It turned out that the file didn't exist, even though it looked like it did. The problem was that Windows 7 was configured to "Hide file extensions for known file types." This means that if file appears to have the name "data.txt" its actual filename is "data.txt.txt".
Hope this helps others save themselves some hair.

I recently found interesting case that produces FileNotFoundExeption when file is obviously exists on the disk.
In my program I read file path from another text file and create File object:
//String path was read from file
System.out.println(path); //file with exactly same visible path exists on disk
File file = new File(path);
System.out.println(file.exists()); //false
System.out.println(file.canRead()); //false
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(file); // FileNotFoundExeption
The cause of the problem was that the path contained invisible \r\n characters at the end.
The fix in my case was:
File file = new File(path.trim());
To generalize a bit, the invisible / non-printing characters could have include space or tab characters, and possibly others, and they could have appeared at the beginning of the path, at the end, or embedded in the path. Trim will work in some cases but not all. There are a couple of things that you can help to spot this kind of problem:
Output the pathname with quote characters around it; e.g.
System.out.println("Check me! '" + path + "'");
and carefully check the output for spaces and line breaks where they shouldn't be.
Use a Java debugger to carefully examine the pathname string, character by character, looking for characters that shouldn't be there. (Also check for homoglyph characters!)

An easy fix, which worked for me, is moving my files out of src and into the main folder of the project. It's not the best solution, but depending on the magnitude of the project and your time, it might be just perfect.

Reading and writing from and to a file can be blocked by your OS depending on the file's permission attributes.
If you are trying to read from the file, then I recommend using File's setReadable method to set it to true, or, this code for instance:
String arbitrary_path = "C:/Users/Username/Blah.txt";
byte[] data_of_file;
File f = new File(arbitrary_path);
f.setReadable(true);
data_of_file = Files.readAllBytes(f);
f.setReadable(false); // do this if you want to prevent un-knowledgeable
//programmers from accessing your file.
If you are trying to write to the file, then I recommend using File's setWritable method to set it to true, or, this code for instance:
String arbitrary_path = "C:/Users/Username/Blah.txt";
byte[] data_of_file = { (byte) 0x00, (byte) 0xFF, (byte) 0xEE };
File f = new File(arbitrary_path);
f.setWritable(true);
Files.write(f, byte_array);
f.setWritable(false); // do this if you want to prevent un-knowledgeable
//programmers from changing your file (for security.)

Apart from all the other answers mentioned here, you can do one thing which worked for me.
If you are reading the path through Scanner or through command line args, instead of copy pasting the path directly from Windows Explorer just manually type in the path.
It worked for me, hope it helps someone :)

I had this same error and solved it simply by adding the src directory that is found in Java project structure.
String path = System.getProperty("user.dir") + "\\src\\package_name\\file_name";
File file = new File(path);
Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file);
Notice that System.getProperty("user.dir") and new File(".").getAbsolutePath() return your project root directory path, so you have to add the path to your subdirectories and packages

You'd obviously figure it out after a while but just posting this so that it might help someone. This could also happen when your file path contains any whitespace appended or prepended to it.

Use single forward slash and always type the path manually. For example:
FileInputStream fi= new FileInputStream("D:/excelfiles/myxcel.xlsx");

What worked for me was catching the exception. Without it the compiler complains even if the file exists.
InputStream file = new FileInputStream("filename");
changed to
try{
InputStream file = new FileInputStream("filename");
System.out.println(file.available());
}
catch (Exception e){
System.out.println(e);
}

This works for me. It also can read files such txt, csv and .in
public class NewReader {
public void read() throws FileNotFoundException, URISyntaxException {
File file = new File(Objects.requireNonNull(NewReader.class.getResource("/test.txt")).toURI());
Scanner sc = new Scanner(file);
while (sc.hasNext()) {
String text = sc.next();
System.out.println(text);
}
}
}
the file is located in resource folder generated by maven. If you have other folders nested in, just add it to the file name like "examples/test.txt".

Why can there be an ArrayOutOfBounds Exception when you are opening a file in java using FileInputStream?

Why is there a need to check ArrayIndexOutOfBounds in FileInputStream in java? This same code is given as an example in a book for core java.
FileInputStream fis;
try{
//fis=new FileInputStream("inputFIle.txt");
fis=new FileInputStream(argv[0]);
}catch(FileNotFoundException e){
System.out.println("File was not found");
}catch(ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e){
e.printStackTrace();
}

There is no need. If you look up the documentation for FileInputStream:
Constructor Detail
FileInputStream
public FileInputStream(String name)
throws FileNotFoundException
Creates a FileInputStream by opening a connection to an actual file, the file >named by the path
name name in the file system. A new FileDescriptor object is created
to represent this file connection. First, if there is a security
manager, its checkRead method is called with the name argument as its
argument.
If the named file does not exist, is a directory rather than a regular
file, or for some other reason cannot be opened for reading then a
FileNotFoundException is thrown.
Parameters: name - the system-dependent file name. Throws:
FileNotFoundException - if the file does not exist, is a directory
rather than a regular file, or for some other reason cannot be opened
for reading.
SecurityException - if a security manager exists and its
checkRead method denies read access to the file.
That constructor does not throw ArrayIndexOutOfBounds. May be it was just a small example written to show syntax or had some other code in the try block.

This same code is given as an example in a book for core java.
NO IT IS NOT
I took the trouble to check this. The original code uses argv[0] for the filename instead of your misspelt string literal, and obviously an array reference can throw that exception. You have misquoted the text you are relying on.

The possibility of explicitly catching an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException in FileInputStream is only when you give the input to FileInputStream Constructor in the form of an array value like arg[0]. Because, it is quite possible that in the command line , you might have given only one argument but you are trying to access argv[1] or argv[2].

File.getCanonicalPath() failure examples

Does anyone have an experience or know when the method File.getCanonicalPath() will throw an IOException
I have tried to look up from the Internet and the best answer is in File API which says
"IOException - If an I/O error occurs, which is possible because the construction of the canonical pathname may require filesystem queries"
However, it is not clear to me because I still cannot think of a case which this might fail. Can anyone give me concrete examples which can happen on Linux, Windows and other OS (optional)?
I reason I want to know is because I want to handle this exception accordingly. Thus, it will be best if I know all the possible failures that can happen.

Here is a Windows example:
Try calling getCanonicalFile on a file in your CD-drive, but without a CD loaded. For example:
new File("D:\\dummy.txt").getCanonicalFile();
you will get:
Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: The device is not ready
at java.io.WinNTFileSystem.canonicalize0(Native Method)
at java.io.Win32FileSystem.canonicalize(Win32FileSystem.java:396)
at java.io.File.getCanonicalPath(File.java:559)
at java.io.File.getCanonicalFile(File.java:583)

The IO Exception also occurs if we try creating a File object with Windows device file keywords (see device files) used as file name.
As if you try renaming the file to those keywords, Windows will not let you to make it (no CON, PRN, COM1 etc. file names allowed), Java also won't be able to convert that file name to the correct path.
So, any of next next code will trow the IO Exception:
File file = new File("COM1").getContextPath();
File file = new File("COM1.txt").getContextPath();
File file = new File("C:/somefolder/COM1.txt").getContextPath();
However, next code should work:
File file = new File("COM1_.txt").getContextPath(); //underscore wins :)

Here is generic example for all OS:
new File("\u0000").getCanonicalFile();
Before canonicalizing of the file, its validity is checked with java.io.File#isInvalid:
final boolean isInvalid() {
if (status == null) {
status = (this.path.indexOf('\u0000') < 0) ? PathStatus.CHECKED
: PathStatus.INVALID;
}
return status == PathStatus.INVALID;
}
And if the file is invalid - you'll get an IO exception:
public String getCanonicalPath() throws IOException {
if (isInvalid()) {
throw new IOException("Invalid file path");
}
return fs.canonicalize(fs.resolve(this));
}
Profit!

Seen here in the Sun Bug Database.
For JRE 1.4.2_06, File.getCanonicalPath() wasn't working on Windows for a removable drive when there is no media present in the drive.
It was corrected in Java 1.5, but you can see there can be OS-based problems with this method.
I don't know of any problem in the current time, but it can happen, that's exactly what the Javadoc says. Usually it's quickly fixed in the newest Java version.

One more scenario, When you try to use Operating System restricted/invalid characters as your file name.
For Windows \ / : * ? " < > | these are the invalid characters. Try to rename a file with : you will get a balloon/tip message about the invalid characters.
Try the Following Java Code.
File file = new File("c:/outputlog-2013-09-20-22:15");
//A common scenario when you try to append java.util.Date to create a file like
//File newFile = new File(filename + "_" + new Date());
System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(file.getCanonicalPath());
If the File name contains
* ? you will get java.io.IOException: Invalid argument
| : you will get java.io.IOException: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect
when you use the getCanonicalPath() method. If we use any of " < >
char in the file name, then getCanonicalPath() method is not failing but when you try to create the file you will be getting the Invalid argument Exception.
Refer jdk7 api
The precise definition of canonical form is system-dependent. Here I have used windows 7.