Changing the current working directory in Java?

Question

How can I change the current working directory from within a Java program? Everything I\'ve been able to find about the issue claims that you simply can\'t do it, but I can\

Answer 1

If I understand correctly, a Java program starts with a copy of the current environment variables. Any changes via System.setProperty(String, String) are modifying the copy, not the original environment variables. Not that this provides a thorough reason as to why Sun chose this behavior, but perhaps it sheds a little light...

Answer 2

Use FileSystemView

private FileSystemView fileSystemView;
fileSystemView = FileSystemView.getFileSystemView();
currentDirectory = new File(".");
//listing currentDirectory
File[] filesAndDirs = fileSystemView.getFiles(currentDirectory, false);
fileList = new ArrayList<File>();
dirList = new ArrayList<File>();
for (File file : filesAndDirs) {
if (file.isDirectory())
    dirList.add(file);
else
    fileList.add(file);
}
Collections.sort(dirList);
if (!fileSystemView.isFileSystemRoot(currentDirectory))
    dirList.add(0, new File(".."));
Collections.sort(fileList);
//change
currentDirectory = fileSystemView.getParentDirectory(currentDirectory);