java regular expression to match file path

Question

I was trying out to create a regular expression to match file path in java like

C:\\abc\\def\\ghi\\abc.txt

I tried this ([

Answer 1

Just saying, one should replace the . in

([a-zA-Z]:)?(\\\\[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]+)+\\\\?

with \\.

. is meant for any character in a regular expression (Java style), while
\. is specifically meant for . character, and we need to escape the backslash

Answer 2

There are two reasons why it is giving you false. First one is that you need \\\\ instead of \\ because you need to escape these characters. And the second one is that you're missing a dot character, you can insert it before a-z as ([a-zA-Z]:)?(\\\\[.a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)+\\\\?

Answer 3

Since the path contains folders and folder name can contain any character other than

? \ / : " * < >

We can use the below regex to match a directory path [it uses all the symbols that a folder name can afford]

[A-Za-z]:[A-Za-z0-9\!\@\#\$\%\^\&\(\)\'\;\{\}\[\]\=\+\-\_\~\`\.\\]+

Answer 4

If it has to match only the path of files lying on the same machine where your app is running, then you can use:

try{
    java.nio.file.Paths.get(yourPath);
}(catch InvalidPathException err){
}

So if you're running your app on windows the code above will catch invalid windows paths and if you're running on unix, it will catch invalid unix paths, etc.

Answer 5

Use this regex:

"([a-zA-Z]:)?(\\\\[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+)+\\\\?";

I added two modifications: you forgot to add . for matching the file name abc.txt and backslash escaping (\\) was also needed.

Answer 6

Here is correct regex for windows filesystem:

Regular Expression:

(?:[a-zA-Z]\:)\\([\w-]+\\)*\w([\w-.])+  

as a Java string

"(?:[a-zA-Z]\\:)\\\\([\\w-]+\\\\)*\\w([\\w-.])+"