Recursively list files in Java

Question

How do I recursively list all files under a directory in Java? Does the framework provide any utility?

I saw a lot of hacky implementations. But none from the fra

Answer 1

Apart from the recursive traversal one can use a Visitor based approach as well.

Below code is uses Visitor based approach for the traversal.It is expected that the input to the program is the root directory to traverse.

public interface Visitor {
    void visit(DirElement d);
    void visit(FileElement f);
}

public abstract class Element {
    protected File rootPath;
    abstract void accept(Visitor v);

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return rootPath.getAbsolutePath();
    }
}

public class FileElement extends Element {
    FileElement(final String path) {
        rootPath = new File(path);
    }

    @Override
    void accept(final Visitor v) {
        v.visit(this);
    }
}

public class DirElement extends Element implements Iterable {
    private final List elemList;
    DirElement(final String path) {
        elemList = new ArrayList();
        rootPath = new File(path);
        for (File f : rootPath.listFiles()) {
            if (f.isDirectory()) {
                elemList.add(new DirElement(f.getAbsolutePath()));
            } else if (f.isFile()) {
                elemList.add(new FileElement(f.getAbsolutePath()));
            }
        }
    }

    @Override
    void accept(final Visitor v) {
        v.visit(this);
    }

    public Iterator iterator() {
        return elemList.iterator();
    }
}

public class ElementWalker {
    private final String rootDir;
    ElementWalker(final String dir) {
        rootDir = dir;
    }

    private void traverse() {
        Element d = new DirElement(rootDir);
        d.accept(new Walker());
    }

    public static void main(final String[] args) {
        ElementWalker t = new ElementWalker("C:\\temp");
        t.traverse();
    }

    private class Walker implements Visitor {
        public void visit(final DirElement d) {
            System.out.println(d);
            for(Element e:d) {
                e.accept(this);
            }
        }

        public void visit(final FileElement f) {
            System.out.println(f);
        }
    }
}