Standard concise way to copy a file in Java?

Question

It has always bothered me that the only way to copy a file in Java involves opening streams, declaring a buffer, reading in one file, looping through it, and writing it out to the other steam. The web is littered with similar, yet still slightly different implementations of this type of solution.

Is there a better way that stays within the bounds of the Java language (meaning does not involve exec-ing OS specific commands)? Perhaps in some reliable open source utility package, that would at least obscure this underlying implementation and provide a one line solution?

Answer 1

I would avoid the use of a mega api like apache commons. This is a simplistic operation and its built into the JDK in the new NIO package. It was kind of already linked to in a previous answer, but the key method in the NIO api are the new functions "transferTo" and "transferFrom".

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/nio/channels/FileChannel.html#transferTo(long,%20long,%20java.nio.channels.WritableByteChannel)

One of the linked articles shows a great way on how to integrate this function into your code, using the transferFrom:

public static void copyFile(File sourceFile, File destFile) throws IOException {
    if(!destFile.exists()) {
        destFile.createNewFile();
    }

    FileChannel source = null;
    FileChannel destination = null;

    try {
        source = new FileInputStream(sourceFile).getChannel();
        destination = new FileOutputStream(destFile).getChannel();
        destination.transferFrom(source, 0, source.size());
    }
    finally {
        if(source != null) {
            source.close();
        }
        if(destination != null) {
            destination.close();
        }
    }
}

Learning NIO can be a little tricky, so you might want to just trust in this mechanic before going off and trying to learn NIO overnight. From personal experience it can be a very hard thing to learn if you don't have the experience and were introduced to IO via the java.io streams.

Answer 2

• These methods are performance-engineered (they integrate with operating system native I/O).
• These methods work with files, directories and links.
• Each of the options supplied may be left out - they are optional.

The utility class

package com.yourcompany.nio;

class Files {

    static int copyRecursive(Path source, Path target, boolean prompt, CopyOptions options...) {
        CopyVisitor copyVisitor = new CopyVisitor(source, target, options).copy();
        EnumSet<FileVisitOption> fileVisitOpts;
        if (Arrays.toList(options).contains(java.nio.file.LinkOption.NOFOLLOW_LINKS) {
            fileVisitOpts = EnumSet.noneOf(FileVisitOption.class) 
        } else {
            fileVisitOpts = EnumSet.of(FileVisitOption.FOLLOW_LINKS);
        }
        Files.walkFileTree(source[i], fileVisitOpts, Integer.MAX_VALUE, copyVisitor);
    }

    private class CopyVisitor implements FileVisitor<Path>  {
        final Path source;
        final Path target;
        final CopyOptions[] options;

        CopyVisitor(Path source, Path target, CopyOptions options...) {
             this.source = source;  this.target = target;  this.options = options;
        };

        @Override
        FileVisitResult preVisitDirectory(Path dir, BasicFileAttributes attrs) {
        // before visiting entries in a directory we copy the directory
        // (okay if directory already exists).
        Path newdir = target.resolve(source.relativize(dir));
        try {
            Files.copy(dir, newdir, options);
        } catch (FileAlreadyExistsException x) {
            // ignore
        } catch (IOException x) {
            System.err.format("Unable to create: %s: %s%n", newdir, x);
            return SKIP_SUBTREE;
        }
        return CONTINUE;
    }

    @Override
    public FileVisitResult visitFile(Path file, BasicFileAttributes attrs) {
        Path newfile= target.resolve(source.relativize(file));
        try {
            Files.copy(file, newfile, options);
        } catch (IOException x) {
            System.err.format("Unable to copy: %s: %s%n", source, x);
        }
        return CONTINUE;
    }

    @Override
    public FileVisitResult postVisitDirectory(Path dir, IOException exc) {
        // fix up modification time of directory when done
        if (exc == null && Arrays.toList(options).contains(COPY_ATTRIBUTES)) {
            Path newdir = target.resolve(source.relativize(dir));
            try {
                FileTime time = Files.getLastModifiedTime(dir);
                Files.setLastModifiedTime(newdir, time);
            } catch (IOException x) {
                System.err.format("Unable to copy all attributes to: %s: %s%n", newdir, x);
            }
        }
        return CONTINUE;
    }

    @Override
    public FileVisitResult visitFileFailed(Path file, IOException exc) {
        if (exc instanceof FileSystemLoopException) {
            System.err.println("cycle detected: " + file);
        } else {
            System.err.format("Unable to copy: %s: %s%n", file, exc);
        }
        return CONTINUE;
    }
}

Copying a directory or file

long bytes = java.nio.file.Files.copy( 
                 new java.io.File("<filepath1>").toPath(), 
                 new java.io.File("<filepath2>").toPath(),
                 java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING,
                 java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption.COPY_ATTRIBUTES,
                 java.nio.file.LinkOption.NOFOLLOW_LINKS);

Moving a directory or file

long bytes = java.nio.file.Files.move( 
                 new java.io.File("<filepath1>").toPath(), 
                 new java.io.File("<filepath2>").toPath(),
                 java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption.ATOMIC_MOVE,
                 java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);

Copying a directory or file recursively

long bytes = com.yourcompany.nio.Files.copyRecursive( 
                 new java.io.File("<filepath1>").toPath(), 
                 new java.io.File("<filepath2>").toPath(),
                 java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING,
                 java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption.COPY_ATTRIBUTES
                 java.nio.file.LinkOption.NOFOLLOW_LINKS );

Answer 3

Google's Guava library also has a copy method:

public static void copy(File from,
                        File to)
                 throws IOException

Copies all the bytes from one file to another.

Warning: If to represents an existing file, that file will be overwritten with the contents of from. If to and from refer to the same file, the contents of that file will be deleted.

Parameters:from - the source fileto - the destination file

Throws: IOException - if an I/O error occurs IllegalArgumentException - if from.equals(to)

Answer 4

Here is three ways that you can easily copy files with single line of code!

Java7:

java.nio.file.Files#copy

private static void copyFileUsingJava7Files(File source, File dest) throws IOException {
    Files.copy(source.toPath(), dest.toPath());
}

Appache Commons IO:

FileUtils#copyFile

private static void copyFileUsingApacheCommonsIO(File source, File dest) throws IOException {
    FileUtils.copyFile(source, dest);
}

Guava :

Files#copy

private static void copyFileUsingGuava(File source,File dest) throws IOException{
    Files.copy(source,dest);          
}

Answer 5

public static void copyFile(File src, File dst) throws IOException
{
    long p = 0, dp, size;
    FileChannel in = null, out = null;

    try
    {
        if (!dst.exists()) dst.createNewFile();

        in = new FileInputStream(src).getChannel();
        out = new FileOutputStream(dst).getChannel();
        size = in.size();

        while ((dp = out.transferFrom(in, p, size)) > 0)
        {
            p += dp;
        }
    }
    finally {
        try
        {
            if (out != null) out.close();
        }
        finally {
            if (in != null) in.close();
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

In Java 7 it is easy...

File src = new File("original.txt");
File target = new File("copy.txt");

Files.copy(src.toPath(), target.toPath(), StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);