Get file name from URL

Question

In Java, given a java.net.URL or a String in the form of http://www.example.com/some/path/to/a/file.xml , what is the easiest way to g

Answer 1

Create an URL object from the String. When first you have an URL object there are methods to easily pull out just about any snippet of information you need.

I can strongly recommend the Javaalmanac web site which has tons of examples, but which has since moved. You might find http://exampledepot.8waytrips.com/egs/java.io/File2Uri.html interesting:

// Create a file object
File file = new File("filename");

// Convert the file object to a URL
URL url = null;
try {
    // The file need not exist. It is made into an absolute path
    // by prefixing the current working directory
    url = file.toURL();          // file:/d:/almanac1.4/java.io/filename
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
}

// Convert the URL to a file object
file = new File(url.getFile());  // d:/almanac1.4/java.io/filename

// Read the file contents using the URL
try {
    // Open an input stream
    InputStream is = url.openStream();

    // Read from is

    is.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
    // Could not open the file
}