How to create a temporary directory/folder in Java

Question

Is there a standard and reliable way of creating a temporary directory inside a Java application? There's an entry in Java's issue database, which has a bit of code in the comments, but I wonder if there is a standard solution to be found in one of the usual libraries (Apache Commons etc.) ?

Answer 1

I got the same problem so this is just another answer for those who are interested, and it's similar to one of the above:

public static final String tempDir = System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir")+"tmp"+System.nanoTime();
static {
    File f = new File(tempDir);
    if(!f.exists())
        f.mkdir();
}

And for my application, I decided that to add in a option to clear the temp on exit so I added in a shut-down hook:

Runtime.getRuntime().addShutdownHook(new Thread() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            //stackless deletion
            String root = MainWindow.tempDir;
            Stack<String> dirStack = new Stack<String>();
            dirStack.push(root);
            while(!dirStack.empty()) {
                String dir = dirStack.pop();
                File f = new File(dir);
                if(f.listFiles().length==0)
                    f.delete();
                else {
                    dirStack.push(dir);
                    for(File ff: f.listFiles()) {
                        if(ff.isFile())
                            ff.delete();
                        else if(ff.isDirectory())
                            dirStack.push(ff.getPath());
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    });

The method delete all subdirs and files before deleting the temp, without using the callstack (which is totally optional and you could do it with recursion at this point), but I want to be on the safe side.

Answer 2

Well, "createTempFile" actually creates the file. So why not just delete it first, and then do the mkdir on it?

Answer 3

I like the multiple attempts at creating a unique name but even this solution does not rule out a race condition. Another process can slip in after the test for exists() and the if(newTempDir.mkdirs()) method invocation. I have no idea how to completely make this safe without resorting to native code, which I presume is what's buried inside File.createTempFile().

Answer 4

Using File#createTempFile and delete to create a unique name for the directory seems ok. You should add a ShutdownHook to delete the directory (recursively) on JVM shutdown.

Answer 5

This is the source code to the Guava library's Files.createTempDir(). It's nowhere as complex as you might think:

public static File createTempDir() {
  File baseDir = new File(System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir"));
  String baseName = System.currentTimeMillis() + "-";

  for (int counter = 0; counter < TEMP_DIR_ATTEMPTS; counter++) {
    File tempDir = new File(baseDir, baseName + counter);
    if (tempDir.mkdir()) {
      return tempDir;
    }
  }
  throw new IllegalStateException("Failed to create directory within "
      + TEMP_DIR_ATTEMPTS + " attempts (tried "
      + baseName + "0 to " + baseName + (TEMP_DIR_ATTEMPTS - 1) + ')');
}

By default:

private static final int TEMP_DIR_ATTEMPTS = 10000;

See here

Answer 6

If you are using JDK 7 use the new Files.createTempDirectory class to create the temporary directory.

Path tempDirWithPrefix = Files.createTempDirectory(prefix);

Before JDK 7 this should do it:

public static File createTempDirectory()
    throws IOException
{
    final File temp;

    temp = File.createTempFile("temp", Long.toString(System.nanoTime()));

    if(!(temp.delete()))
    {
        throw new IOException("Could not delete temp file: " + temp.getAbsolutePath());
    }

    if(!(temp.mkdir()))
    {
        throw new IOException("Could not create temp directory: " + temp.getAbsolutePath());
    }

    return (temp);
}

You could make better exceptions (subclass IOException) if you want.