to find the home directory in java

[terry Kiernan]

Hi ,

Does anyone know of a neat way to retieve a file X from anyones home diretory

say you are running the java app in /net/partt/blah/projectwork your home dir is in /net/blah/user/dir/X the user can be anyone ...

Anyone know a neat way to do this in java ?

Help much appreciated ..

[Tom Johnson]

You can get the user directory using

System.getProperty("user.home);

From there you can create a file object representing the target file and do whatever you want with it then, i.e. read it, parse it etc, using the java.io.File API.

Hope this helps

[terry Kiernan]

thanks tom,
That helps but i am trying to get the file so
say i want the string value to hold this value $HOME/.Xdir/file.cc ( the relative path name for the file)

String UserHome = System.getProperty("user.home" + .Xdir/file.cc)

But when i run this i get null ,

any ideas
Thanks

[Joe Ess]

There is no system property named "user.home.Xdir/file.cc", which is what you are passing to System.getProperty.
First get the home directory from System.getProperty() then append whatever subdirectories and files you want after.

[terry Kiernan]

Joe,
Is this what you mean ?

StringBuffer strb = new StringBuffer (system.getproperty);
strb.append (".Xdir/xfile.cc");
System.out.println (strb.toString());

[Thomas Thevis]

Well, does it work?

[Rene Larsen]

String userHome = System.getProperty("user.home");
String file = userHome + "/.Xdir/file.cc";

will get your user home and append the extra file path.