Copy file in Java and replace existing target

Question

I\'m trying to copy a file with java.nio.file.Files like this:

Files.copy(cfgFilePath, strTarget, StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);

The

Answer 1

You need to pass Path arguments as explained by the error message:

Path from = cfgFilePath.toPath(); //convert from File to Path
Path to = Paths.get(strTarget); //convert from String to Path
Files.copy(from, to, StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);

That assumes your strTarget is a valid path.

Answer 2

strTarget is a "String" object and not a "Path" object

Answer 3

package main.java;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption;

public class CopyFileOnExist {

    public static void main(String[] args)  {

        Path sourceDirectory = Paths.get("C:/Users/abc/Downloads/FileNotFoundExceptionExample/append.txt");
        Path targetDirectory = Paths.get("C:/Users/abc/Downloads/FileNotFoundExceptionExample/append5.txt");

        //copy source to target using Files Class
        try {
            Files.copy(sourceDirectory, targetDirectory,StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println(e.toString());
        }
    }

}

Answer 4

As a complement to @assylias' answer:

If you use Java 7, drop File entirely. What you want is Path instead.

And to get a Path object matching a path on your filesystem, you do:

Paths.get("path/to/file"); // argument may also be absolute

Get used to it real fast. Note that if you still use APIs which require File, Path has a .toFile() method.

Note that if you are in the unfortunate case where you use an API which returns File objects, you can always do:

theFileObject.toPath()

But in code of yours, use Path. Systematically. Without a second thought.

EDIT Copying a file to another using 1.6 using NIO can be done as such; note that the Closer class is inspited by Guava:

public final class Closer
    implements Closeable
{
    private final List<Closeable> closeables = new ArrayList<Closeable>();

    // @Nullable is a JSR 305 annotation
    public <T extends Closeable> T add(@Nullable final T closeable)
    {
        closeables.add(closeable);
        return closeable;
    }

    public void closeQuietly()
    {
        try {
            close();
        } catch (IOException ignored) {
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void close()
        throws IOException
    {
        IOException toThrow = null;
        final List<Closeable> l = new ArrayList<Closeable>(closeables);
        Collections.reverse(l);

        for (final Closeable closeable: l) {
            if (closeable == null)
                continue;
            try {
                closeable.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                if (toThrow == null)
                    toThrow = e;
            }
        }

        if (toThrow != null)
            throw toThrow;
    }
}

// Copy one file to another using NIO
public static void doCopy(final File source, final File destination)
    throws IOException
{
    final Closer closer = new Closer();
    final RandomAccessFile src, dst;
    final FileChannel in, out;

    try {
        src = closer.add(new RandomAccessFile(source.getCanonicalFile(), "r");
        dst = closer.add(new RandomAccessFile(destination.getCanonicalFile(), "rw");
        in = closer.add(src.getChannel());
        out = closer.add(dst.getChannel());
        in.transferTo(0L, in.size(), out);
        out.force(false);
    } finally {
        closer.close();
    }
}