This package defines an interface (IOFileFilter) that combines both {@link java.io.FileFilter} and {@link java.io.FilenameFilter}. Besides that the package offers a series of ready-to-use implementations of the IOFileFilter interface including implementation that allow you to combine other such filters.
These filter can be used to list files or in {@link java.awt.FileDialog}, for example.
There are a number of 'primitive' filters:
DirectoryFilter | Only accept directories |
PrefixFileFilter | Filter based on a prefix |
SuffixFileFilter | Filter based on a suffix |
NameFileFilter | Filter based on a filename |
WildcardFileFilter | Filter based on wildcards |
AgeFileFilter | Filter based on last modified time of file |
SizeFileFilter | Filter based on file size |
And there are five 'boolean' filters:
TrueFileFilter | Accept all files |
FalseFileFilter | Accept no files |
NotFileFilter | Applies a logical NOT to an existing filter |
AndFileFilter | Combines two filters using a logical AND |
OrFileFilter | Combines two filter using a logical OR |
These boolean FilenameFilters can be nested, to allow arbitrary expressions. For example, here is how one could print all non-directory files in the current directory, starting with "A", and ending in ".java" or ".class":
File dir = new File("."); String[] files = dir.list( new AndFileFilter( new AndFileFilter( new PrefixFileFilter("A"), new OrFileFilter( new SuffixFileFilter(".class"), new SuffixFileFilter(".java") ) ), new NotFileFilter( new DirectoryFileFilter() ) ) ); for ( int i=0; i<files.length; i++ ) { System.out.println(files[i]); }
This package also contains a utility class: FileFilterUtils. It allows you to use all file filters without having to put them in the import section. Here's how the above example will look using FileFilterUtils:
File dir = new File("."); String[] files = dir.list( FileFilterUtils.andFileFilter( FileFilterUtils.andFileFilter( FileFilterUtils.prefixFileFilter("A"), FileFilterUtils.orFileFilter( FileFilterUtils.suffixFileFilter(".class"), FileFilterUtils.suffixFileFilter(".java") ) ), FileFilterUtils.notFileFilter( FileFilterUtils.directoryFileFilter() ) ) ); for ( int i=0; i<files.length; i++ ) { System.out.println(files[i]); }
There are a few other goodies in that class so please have a look at the documentation in detail.