How to find files that match a wildcard string in Java?

Question

This should be really simple. If I have a String like this:

../Test?/sample*.txt

then what is a generally-accepted way to get a list of fil

Answer 1

You could convert your wildcard string to a regular expression and use that with String's matches method. Following your example:

String original = "../Test?/sample*.txt";
String regex = original.replace("?", ".?").replace("*", ".*?");

This works for your examples:

Assert.assertTrue("../Test1/sample22b.txt".matches(regex));
Assert.assertTrue("../Test4/sample-spiffy.txt".matches(regex));

And counter-examples:

Assert.assertTrue(!"../Test3/sample2.blah".matches(regex));
Assert.assertTrue(!"../Test44/sample2.txt".matches(regex));

Answer 2

Might not help you right now, but JDK 7 is intended to have glob and regex file name matching as part of "More NIO Features".

Answer 3

Why not use do something like:

File myRelativeDir = new File("../../foo");
String fullPath = myRelativeDir.getCanonicalPath();
Sting wildCard = fullPath + File.separator + "*.txt";

// now you have a fully qualified path

Then you won't have to worry about relative paths and can do your wildcarding as needed.

Answer 4

Util Method:

public static boolean isFileMatchTargetFilePattern(final File f, final String targetPattern) {
        String regex = targetPattern.replace(".", "\\.");  //escape the dot first
        regex = regex.replace("?", ".?").replace("*", ".*");
        return f.getName().matches(regex);

    }

jUnit Test:

@Test
public void testIsFileMatchTargetFilePattern()  {
    String dir = "D:\\repository\\org\my\\modules\\mobile\\mobile-web\\b1605.0.1";
    String[] regexPatterns = new String[] {"_*.repositories", "*.pom", "*-b1605.0.1*","*-b1605.0.1", "mobile*"};
    File fDir = new File(dir);
    File[] files = fDir.listFiles();

    for (String regexPattern : regexPatterns) {
        System.out.println("match pattern [" + regexPattern + "]:");
        for (File file : files) {
            System.out.println("\t" + file.getName() + " matches:" + FileUtils.isFileMatchTargetFilePattern(file, regexPattern));
        }
    }
}

Output:

match pattern [_*.repositories]:
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.pom matches:false
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.war matches:false
    _remote.repositories matches:true
match pattern [*.pom]:
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.pom matches:true
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.war matches:false
    _remote.repositories matches:false
match pattern [*-b1605.0.1*]:
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.pom matches:true
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.war matches:true
    _remote.repositories matches:false
match pattern [*-b1605.0.1]:
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.pom matches:false
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.war matches:false
    _remote.repositories matches:false
match pattern [mobile*]:
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.pom matches:true
    mobile-web-b1605.0.1.war matches:true
    _remote.repositories matches:false

Answer 5

Path testPath = Paths.get("C:\");

Stream<Path> stream =
                Files.find(testPath, 1,
                        (path, basicFileAttributes) -> {
                            File file = path.toFile();
                            return file.getName().endsWith(".java");
                        });

// Print all files found
stream.forEach(System.out::println);

Answer 6

Simple Way without using any external import is to use this method

I created csv files named with billing_201208.csv ,billing_201209.csv ,billing_201210.csv and it looks like working fine.

Output will be the following if files listed above exists

found billing_201208.csv
found billing_201209.csv
found billing_201210.csv

    //Use Import ->import java.io.File
        public static void main(String[] args) {
        String pathToScan = ".";
        String target_file ;  // fileThatYouWantToFilter
        File folderToScan = new File(pathToScan); 


    File[] listOfFiles = folderToScan.listFiles();

     for (int i = 0; i < listOfFiles.length; i++) {
            if (listOfFiles[i].isFile()) {
                target_file = listOfFiles[i].getName();
                if (target_file.startsWith("billing")
                     && target_file.endsWith(".csv")) {
                //You can add these files to fileList by using "list.add" here
                     System.out.println("found" + " " + target_file); 
                }
           }
     }    
}