Name: js151677 Date: 06/22/2004


FULL PRODUCT VERSION :
1.2.2, 1.3.1, 1.4.2

ADDITIONAL OS VERSION INFORMATION :
Windows XP (5.1), and probably all windows plateforms

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
Setting a File to a relative path and building a new File relative to the first using File(parent,child) constructor is not consistent if the first File was built with a *drive* relative path.
It seems that building a relative path with File(parent,child) constructor incorrectly inserts a name-separator caracter after the drive letter, resulting in an absolute path instead of a drive relative path


STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
If you run the following code from the c:\windows directory :
   File f1 = new File(".");
   File f2 = new File(f1, "system32");
   System.out.println(f1.getPath()+", "+f1.isAbsolute()+", "+f1.getAbsolutePath());
   System.out.println(f2.getPath()+", "+f2.isAbsolute()+", "+f2.getAbsolutePath());

it correctly produces a relative path:
   ., false, C:\WINDOWS\.
   .\system32, false, C:\WINDOWS\.\system32

but the following code:
   File f1 = new File("c:");
   File f2 = new File(f1, "system32");
   System.out.println(f1.getPath()+", "+f1.isAbsolute()+", "+f1.getAbsolutePath());
   System.out.println(f2.getPath()+", "+f2.isAbsolute()+", "+f2.getAbsolutePath());

does not produce the expected result and builds an incorrect absolute path

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
the preceding code should produce:
   c:, false, c:\WINDOWS
   c:system32, false, c:\WINDOWS\system32

ACTUAL -
it incorrectly produces:
   c:, false, c:\WINDOWS
   c:\system32, true, c:\system32


REPRODUCIBILITY :
This bug can be reproduced always.

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
import java.io.*;
public class test
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
// This code works has expected
File f1 = new File(".");
File f2 = new File(f1, "system32");
System.out.println(f1.getPath()+", "+f1.isAbsolute()+", "+f1.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(f2.getPath()+", "+f2.isAbsolute()+", "+f2.getAbsolutePath());
// This does not ! The resulting path is incorrect...
f1 = new File("c:");
f2 = new File(f1, "system32");
System.out.println(f1.getPath()+", "+f1.isAbsolute()+", "+f1.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(f2.getPath()+", "+f2.isAbsolute()+", "+f2.getAbsolutePath());
// ...it should have been equivalent to this:
f1 = new File("c:system32");
System.out.println(f1.getPath()+", "+f1.isAbsolute()+", "+f1.getAbsolutePath());
// A work around that resolves to the right path, but it is now absolute :(
f1 = new File("c:");
f2 = new File(f1.getAbsolutePath(), "system32");
System.out.println(f1.getPath()+", "+f1.isAbsolute()+", "+f1.getAbsolutePath());
System.out.println(f2.getPath()+", "+f2.isAbsolute()+", "+f2.getAbsolutePath());
}
}
---------- END SOURCE ----------

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
A first solution is to always resolve the relative path to an absolute path before path concatenation:
   f1 = new File("c:");
   f2 = new File(f1.getAbsolutePath(), "system32"); // the path is absolute

But if you want your path to stay relative, you need to write your own code to do the path concatenation with Strings.
   String path1=f1.getPath();
   if (path1.endsWith(":")) // by the way, there is no File static field for the drive-separator character, so this code may be not portable
       f2 = new File(path1+path2);
   else // use the usual File concatenation
       f2 = new File(f1, path2);
(Incident Review ID: 280839)
======================================================================
###@###.### 10/15/04 01:13 GMT