Check If A File Exists In A Directory In Java

In this instructional exercise, we will figure out or find out how to check whether a file exists in a directory or not through a simple Java code with examples.
Most of the time we need to perform certain operations in a file and before operating we need to check first whether the file we are including in the code exists in the directory or not.

File Whether Exists Or Not In A Directory

If you don’t know how to check whether a file exists or not in a directory through a code or program then you are at the right place.
After this exercise, you will be able to write a java program to check if a record exists in a registry.

Java ‘record exists’ tests:
To see if a file exists in a directory we can use the “exists” method of Java File class.
You can do it by including:

File file_obj=new File("FileCheck.txt");
boolean result=file_obj.exists();

The exists methods returns “true” if a file exists and returns “false” if it doesn’t.

To check whether a “FileCheck” is a file or Directory and to check, you can use “isDirectory()” method
You can do it by:

if(file.isDirectory())
System.out.println("FileCheck is a directory");

You can also check to identify whether it is truly a file or not and to check you can use the “isFile()” method in your java code.
You can do it by:

if("FileCheck.isFile())
System.out.println("FileCheck is a file");

Merging it all together, The below code will help you to achieve your goal:

import java.io.File;
public class FileExistsCheck
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        File file = new File("File1.txt");
        boolean result = file.exists();
        if(result && file.isFile())
        {
            System.out.println("File1 exists and it is a file");
        }
        //to check whether it is directory
        else if(file.isDirectory())
        {
            System.out.println("File1 is a directory");
        }
        else
            System.out.println("File1 is neither a file nor a directory");
    }
}

The output of the program is :

File1 exists and it is a file

 

Also, read:

• To determine whether string is rotated or not in Java (without using loops)
• Moving a file from One Directory to Another using Java