Hot to get rid of an java.io.Exception at java.io.WinNTFileSystem.createFileExclusively?

Question

I currently have the problem that I encounter an exception I never saw before and that's why I don't know how to handle it.

I want to create a file according to given parameters, but it won't work.

public static Path createFile(String destDir, String fileName) throws IOException {
        FileAccess.createDirectory( destDir);

        Path xpath = new Path( destDir + Path.SEPARATOR + fileName);

        if (! xpath.toFile().exists()) {
            xpath.toFile().createNewFile();
            if(FileAccess.TRACE_FILE)Trace.println1("<<< createFile " + xpath.toString() );
        }
      return xpath;
  }


  public static void createDirectory(String destDir) {
      Path dirpath = new Path(destDir);
      if (! dirpath.toFile().exists()) {
          dirpath.toFile().mkdir();
          if(TRACE_FILE)Trace.println1("<<< mkdir " + dirpath.toString() );
      }
  }

Every time I run my application the following exception occurs:

java.io.IOException: The system cannot find the path specified
at java.io.WinNTFileSystem.createFileExclusively(Native Method)
at java.io.File.createNewFile(Unknown Source)
[...]

How do I get rid of it? (I am using Win7 64bit btw)

Answer 1

The problem is that a file can't be created unless the entire containing path already exists - its immediate parent directory and all parents above it.

If you have a path c:\Temp and no subdirectories below it, and you try to create a file called c:\Temp\SubDir\myfile.txt, that will fail because C:\Temp\SubDir doesn't exist.

Before

   xpath.toFile().createNewFile(); 

add

   xpath.toFile().mkdirs(); 

(I'm not sure if mkdirs() requires just the path in the object; if it does, then change that new line to

   new File(destDir).mkdirs();

Otherwise, you'll get your filename created as a subdirectory instead! You can verify which is correct by checking your Windows Explorer to see what directories it created.)