file IO 'path' terms?

[Liz Brown]

hi,
what's :
1>absolutepath
2>canonicalpath
can you please give examples what they mean when we create a file instance?
thanks

[Bijesh Krishnadas]

From J2SE 1.3.1 API Specs

A canonical pathname is both absolute and unique. The precise definition of canonical form is system-dependent. This method first converts this pathname to absolute form if necessary, as if by invoking the getAbsolutePath() method, and then maps it to its unique form in a system-dependent way. This typically involves removing redundant names such as "." and ".." from the pathname, resolving symbolic links (on UNIX platforms), and converting drive letters to a standard case (on Win32 platforms).

See the following code

  
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
public class Test 
{
  public Test()
  {
  }
  
  public static void main(String [] s) throws IOException
  {
    File file = new File("../teststuff.htm");
    System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath());
    System.out.println(file.getCanonicalPath());
    file = new File("d:\\teststuff.htm");
    System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath());
    System.out.println(file.getCanonicalPath());
  }
}

Output is as follows
---------------------
D:\Program Files\JDEV_905\jdev\bin\..\teststuff.htm
D:\Program Files\JDEV_905\jdev\teststuff.htm
d:\teststuff.htm
D:\teststuff.htm

[Dirk Schreckmann]

shivan B,
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