Directory not writable

[Vikram Gosain]

Hi
In the code below I am getting "The directory is not writable" mesasge.But this directory is writable.I can very much create a file/folder/shortcut in this directory.

    File f = new File("C://Documents and Settings/vgosa/Application Data/Microsoft/Internet Explorer//Quick Launch");
       if(f.canWrite())
           System.out.println("The directory is writable");
       else
           System.out.println("The directory is not writable");

Can anyone please help me with this.?.

Thanks
-Vikz

[Jesper de Jong]

Why are you mixing single slashes and double slashes in the directory name?

Windows works with a backslash \ as the path separator, not with a forward slash /. Because \ is an escape character in Java string literals, you have to use \\ in a Java string literal for a backslash. Try this:

File f = new File("C:\\Documents and Settings\\vgosa\\Application Data\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Quick Launch");

[Vikram Gosain]

Jesper Young wrote:Why are you mixing single slashes and double slashes in the directory name?

Windows works with a backslash \ as the path separator, not with a forward slash /. Because \ is an escape character in Java string literals, you have to use \\ in a Java string literal for a backslash. Try this:

File f = new File("C:\\Documents and Settings\\vgosa\\Application Data\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Quick Launch");

Hello Jesper
I tried giving backslash the way you told me.I still did not work.You can try this small piece of code yourself on your system.

Thanks
-Vikz

[Devaka Cooray]

Are you sure that the given path, (including the "Quick Launch" sub-directory) already exists?

There may be another reason that you are using resources in "Documents and Settings" directory, which may require sufficient privileges to read/write them.

[Paul Clapham]

I think, if you do the experiment, you'll find that "canWrite()" returns false for every single directory in your file system. Try it and tell me if I'm wrong.

[Devaka Cooray]

Paul Clapham wrote:I think, if you do the experiment, you'll find that "canWrite()" returns false for every single directory in your file system. Try it and tell me if I'm wrong.

Mmm, that's not.
It returns true even for directories.

[Michael Angstadt]

Devaka Cooray wrote:Are you sure that the given path, (including the "Quick Launch" sub-directory) already exists?

Try using File.exists() to make sure your path is correct.

[cchetan jain]

hi..when this directory exists in the path,then canWrite() is true..and if this directory is not exists,it is simply can not be written obviously because after the instance creation of File object,the file is not created actually if the file is not exist.so canWrite() becomes false in this case..i tried it on my pc..

[Paul Clapham]

Devaka Cooray wrote:

Paul Clapham wrote:I think, if you do the experiment, you'll find that "canWrite()" returns false for every single directory in your file system. Try it and tell me if I'm wrong.

Mmm, that's not.
It returns true even for directories.

Okay. And when you did the experiment, did you notice anything the the directories with canWrite=false had in common?

[Rob Spoor]

Jesper Young wrote:Windows works with a backslash \ as the path separator, not with a forward slash /.

Actually, File knows how to handle forward slashes in Windows as well. That's why I prefer to use only forward slashes when creating relative File objects.

[Jesper de Jong]

If you really want to do it right, you should use File.separator instead of putting \ or / characters directly in your string:

File f = new File("C:" + File.separator + "Documents and Settings" + File.separator + "vgosa" + File.separator + "Application Data" +
                  File.separator + "Microsoft" + File.separator + "Internet Explorer" + File.separator + "Quick Launch");

But that's kind of long, and if the path starts with "C:", which is a Windows-only thing, it doesn't really make sense...