isFile(): This method returns true if file exists and is a regular file, note that if file doesn’t exist then it returns false.isDirectory(): This method returns true if file is actually a directory, if path doesn’t exist then it returns false.
While checking if a file is a directory or regular file, we should first check if the file exists or not. If it exists then only we should check if it’s a directory or file.
A simple java program showing it’s usage.
package com.journaldev.files;
import java.io.File;
public class CheckDirectoryOrFile {
public static void main(String[] args) {
File file = new File("/Users/pankaj/source.txt");
File dir = new File("/Users/pankaj");
File notExists = new File("/Users/pankaj/notafile");
System.out.println("/Users/pankaj/source.txt is file?"+file.isFile());
System.out.println("/Users/pankaj/source.txt is directory?"+file.isDirectory());
System.out.println("/Users/pankaj is file?"+dir.isFile());
System.out.println("/Users/pankaj is directory?"+dir.isDirectory());
System.out.println("/Users/pankaj/notafile is file?"+notExists.isFile());
System.out.println("/Users/pankaj/notafile is directory?"+notExists.isDirectory());
}
}
Output of the above program is:
/Users/pankaj/source.txt is file?true
/Users/pankaj/source.txt is directory?false
/Users/pankaj is file?false
/Users/pankaj is directory?true
/Users/pankaj/notafile is file?false
/Users/pankaj/notafile is directory?false