Recursively list files in Java

Question

How do I recursively list all files under a directory in Java? Does the framework provide any utility?

I saw a lot of hacky implementations. But none from the framework or nio

Answer 1

With Java 7 you can use the following class:

import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.FileVisitResult;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.nio.file.SimpleFileVisitor;
import java.nio.file.attribute.BasicFileAttributes;

public class MyFileIterator extends SimpleFileVisitor<Path>
{
    public MyFileIterator(String path) throws Exception
    {
        Files.walkFileTree(Paths.get(path), this);
    }

    @Override
    public FileVisitResult visitFile(Path file,
            BasicFileAttributes attributes) throws IOException
    {
        System.out.println("File: " + file);
        return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
    }

    @Override
    public FileVisitResult preVisitDirectory(Path dir,
            BasicFileAttributes attributes) throws IOException
    {
        System.out.println("Dir: " + dir);
        return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
    }
}

Answer 2

In Java 8, we can now use the Files utility to walk a file tree. Very simple.

Files.walk(root.toPath())
      .filter(path -> !Files.isDirectory(path))
      .forEach(path -> System.out.println(path));

Answer 3

You can use below code to get a list of files of specific folder or directory recursively.

public static void main(String args[]) {

        recusiveList("D:");

    }

    public static void recursiveList(String path) {

        File f = new File(path);
        File[] fl = f.listFiles();
        for (int i = 0; i < fl.length; i++) {
            if (fl[i].isDirectory() && !fl[i].isHidden()) {
                System.out.println(fl[i].getAbsolutePath());
                recusiveList(fl[i].getAbsolutePath());
            } else {
                System.out.println(fl[i].getName());
            }
        }
    }

Answer 4

I would go with something like:

public void list(File file) {
    System.out.println(file.getName());
    File[] children = file.listFiles();
    for (File child : children) {
        list(child);
    }
}

The System.out.println is just there to indicate to do something with the file. there is no need to differentiate between files and directories, since a normal file will simply have zero children.

Answer 5

Example outputs *.csv files in directory recursive searching Subdirectories using Files.find() from java.nio:

String path = "C:/Daten/ibiss/ferret/";
    logger.debug("Path:" + path);
    try (Stream<Path> fileList = Files.find(Paths.get(path), Integer.MAX_VALUE,
            (filePath, fileAttr) -> fileAttr.isRegularFile() && filePath.toString().endsWith("csv"))) {
        List<String> someThingNew = fileList.sorted().map(String::valueOf).collect(Collectors.toList());
        for (String t : someThingNew) {
            t.toString();
            logger.debug("Filename:" + t);
        }

    }

Posting this example, as I had trouble understanding howto pass the filename parameter in the #1 example given by Bryan, using foreach on Stream-result -

Hope this helps.

Answer 6

// Ready to run

import java.io.File;

public class Filewalker {

    public void walk( String path ) {

        File root = new File( path );
        File[] list = root.listFiles();

        if (list == null) return;

        for ( File f : list ) {
            if ( f.isDirectory() ) {
                walk( f.getAbsolutePath() );
                System.out.println( "Dir:" + f.getAbsoluteFile() );
            }
            else {
                System.out.println( "File:" + f.getAbsoluteFile() );
            }
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Filewalker fw = new Filewalker();
        fw.walk("c:\\" );
    }

}