Thread: File exists or not

Hi

So, I have text on a textpane.

When i hit the save button i want to know if the file already exists on the disk because in that case i want to "update" that file and if that file does not exists I want to create it with the text which is inside the textpane.

When the the first hit on the save button will be this :

if(fileChooser.showSaveDialog(this) != JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION)
            return;
 
        File f = fileChooser.getSelectedFile();
 
        if(f == null)
            return;
 
        try{
            FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream(f);
            rtf.write(fout, textArea.getDocument(), 0, textArea.getDocument().getLength());
        }
        catch(IOException e) {}
        catch(BadLocationException e) {}
        catch(NullPointerException e) {}
        frame.setTitle(fileChooser.getSelectedFile().getName());
    }

Ok, now I know that the file exists on the disc because with the code that i posted the final user saved it.

The second hit in the same save button will just do the "update" of the file (modifications, etc).

How can I do it ?

Any tips please ?

The easiest way for the computer to save a file is to simply over-write it (either that or append to it, though this could lead to rather large files).

You can check if a file exists before-hand using file.exists().

// creates the file specified by f is it doesn't exist
if(!f.exists())
{
    f.createNewFile();
}

However, I this is unnecessary because FileOutputStream automatically creates the file if it doesn't exist before-hand.