Java better way to delete file if exists
Apache Commons IO's FileUtils offers FileUtils.deleteQuietly
:
Deletes a file, never throwing an exception. If file is a directory, delete it and all sub-directories. The difference between File.delete() and this method are:
- A directory to be deleted does not have to be empty.
- No exceptions are thrown when a file or directory cannot be deleted.
This offers a one-liner delete call that won't complain if the file fails to be deleted:
FileUtils.deleteQuietly(new File("test.txt"));
Starting from Java 7 you can use deleteIfExists that returns a boolean (or throw an Exception) depending on whether a file was deleted or not. This method may not be atomic with respect to other file system operations. Moreover if a file is in use by JVM/other program then on some operating system it will not be able to remove it. Every file can be converted to path via toPath
method . E.g.
File file = ...;
boolean result = Files.deleteIfExists(file.toPath()); //surround it in try catch block
There's also the Java 7 solution, using the new(ish) Path abstraction:
Path fileToDeletePath = Paths.get("fileToDelete_jdk7.txt");
Files.delete(fileToDeletePath);
Hope this helps.
file.delete();
if the file doesn't exist, it will return false.