Accessing Files and Directories - Beginning Java 2 SDK - page 365

Method Description

setReadOnly() Sets the file represented by the current object as read-only and

returns true if the operation is successful.

mkdir() Creates a directory with the path specified by the current File

object. The method will fail if the parent directory of the directory
to be created does not already exist. The method returns true if it
is successful and false otherwise.

mkdirs() Creates the directory represented by the current File object,

including any parent directories that are required. It returns true
if the new directory is created successfully, and false otherwise.
Note that even if the method fails, some of the directories in the
path may have been created.

createNewFile() Creates a new empty file with the pathname defined by the current

File object as long as the file does not already exist. The method
returns true if the file was created successfully. Note that this
method will only create a file in an existing directory - it will not
create any directories specified by the path.

createTempFile
(String prefix,
String suffix,
File directory)

This is a static method that creates a temporary file in the
directory directory , with a name created using the first two
arguments, and returns a File object corresponding to the file
created. The string prefix represents the start of the file name
and must be at least three characters long. The string suffix
specifies the file extension. The file name will be formed from
prefix followed by five or more generated characters, followed
by suffix . If suffix is null , .tmp will be used. If prefix or
suffix are too long for file names on the current system, they
will be truncated, but neither will be truncated to less than three
characters. If the directory argument is null , the system
temporary directory will be used. If the file cannot be created, an
IOException will be thrown. If prefix has less than three
characters, an IllegalArgumentException will be thrown.

createTempFile
(String prefix,
String suffix)

Equivalent to createTempFile(String prefix,
String suffix,
null).

delete() This will delete the file or directory represented by the current

File object and return true if the delete was successful. It won't
delete directories that are not empty. To delete a directory, you
must first delete the files it contains.

deleteOnExit() Causes the file or directory represented by the current File

object to be deleted when the program ends. This method does not
return a value. The deletion will only be attempted if the JVM
terminates normally. Once you call the method for a File object,
the delete operation is irrevocable, so you will need to be cautious
with this method.