How do I check if a file exists in Java?

Question

How can I check whether a file exists, before opening it for reading in Java? (equivalent of Perl's -e $filename).

The only similar question on SO deals with writing the file and was thus answered using FileWriter which is obviously not applicable here.

If possible I'd prefer a real API call returning true/false as opposed to some "Call API to open a file and catch when it throws an exception which you check for 'no file' in text", but I can live with the latter.

Answer 1

You can use the java.io.File.exists() method for this.It tests the existence of the file or directory.

If the file defined by the abstract pathname exists, then this method returns boolean true, otherwise it returns boolean false.This method doesn’t throw any exception.

File f = new File(filePathString);

if(f.exists() && !f.isDirectory()) { 

    // do something

}