java.io.FileNotFoundException versus java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException

java.io.FileNotFoundException and java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException

looks to me like NoSuchFileException is new to java 7?

by looking at the documentation, it seems to me like FileNotFoundException alludes to failure to open a file, where NoSuchFileException could be applied in more general circumstances.

for people who are "lazy" and like to re-use built in exceptions, any thoughts or feelings as too why one would switch to using NoSuchFileException?

i am a bit confused why there couldnt just be one "file was not found exception" in the language...

Jessie Kensinger wrote:by looking at the documentation, it seems to me like FileNotFoundException alludes to failure to open a file, where NoSuchFileException could be applied in more general circumstances.

No, I think it's the other way around. The Java 7 exception NoSuchFileException is used only when the requested file does not exist; the earlier version FileNotFoundException was used for that and also for cases where the file does exist but can't be accessed for some reason. In Java 7 there is AccessDeniedException for the latter cases.

for people who are "lazy" and like to re-use built in exceptions, any thoughts or feelings as too why one would switch to using NoSuchFileException?

Perhaps the language designers decided that reusing exceptions was actually a bad thing (although being lazy is usually a good characteristic for a programmer). The old FileNotFoundException was even thrown when a URLConnection failed to access an HTTP resource -- this wasn't helpful when the exception was read by somebody who wasn't too clear on the difference between a file and a resource.

Jessie Kensinger wrote:looks to me like NoSuchFileException is new to java 7?

Correct. The entire java.nio.file package, which includes NIO2, was added in Java 7.