How to check if a given path is possible child of another path?

Question

I am trying to find if given path is possible child of another path using java. Both path may not exist.

Say c:\\Program Files\\My Company\\test\\My App

Answer 1

Surprisingly there is no simple, yet functional solution.

The accepted answer does consider same directories as child, which is wrong.

Here is one using java.nio.file.Path API only:

static boolean isChildPath(Path parent, Path child){
      Path pn = parent.normalize();
      Path cn = child.normalize();
      return cn.getNameCount() > pn.getNameCount() && cn.startsWith(pn);
}

Test cases:

 @Test
public void testChildPath() {
      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F"), Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F"))).isFalse();
      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F"), Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F/A"))).isTrue();
      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F"), Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F/A.txt"))).isTrue();

      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F"), Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F/../A"))).isFalse();
      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F"), Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/FA"))).isFalse();

      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("FolderA"), Paths.get("FolderA"))).isFalse();
      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("FolderA"), Paths.get("FolderA/B"))).isTrue();
      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("FolderA"), Paths.get("FolderA/B"))).isTrue();
      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("FolderA"), Paths.get("FolderAB"))).isFalse();
      assertThat(isChildPath(Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F"), Paths.get("/FolderA/FolderB/F/Z/X/../A"))).isTrue();
}