How do I refer to a directory in Java?
file, io, java, windows
Solution
one way to go about is to pass the file object corresponding to "C:\somedir" to the method and inside the method, do a listFiles() and walk through the contents, each time checking for file name and if it is "report", do a isDirectory(). proceed with actual processing when this returns true.
Problem
I'm running Windows and I'm trying to refer to a directory. My function starts off like this: ``` File file = new File("C:\\somedir\\report"); if (!file.exists()) { file.mkdirs(); } doStuffWith(file); ``` I got a NullPointerException within the `doStuffWith` function, when I tried to call `listFiles`. Well I looked in C:\somedir and what did I find - there is a file called "report" with no extension, and also a directory called "report"! What seemed to happen was that the `file` object was referring to the report file rather than the directory. How do I make sure that I am referring to the directory and not the file?