Java: check symbolic link file existence

Question

We talk about java 1.6 here. Since symoblic link is not yet supported, how can examine the existence of them.

1: tell wheather the link file itself exists (return tr

Answer 1

#2 is easy: just use File.isFile etc., which will traverse the link. The hard part is #1.

So if you cannot use java.nio.file, and want to avoid JNI etc., the only thing I found which works:

static boolean exists(File link) {
    File[] kids = link.getParentFile().listFiles();
    return kids != null && Arrays.asList(kids).contains(link);
}

Not terribly efficient but straightforward.