Delete Files with same Prefix String using Java

Question

I have around 500 text files inside a directory with a same prefix in their filename say dailyReport_.

The latter part of the file is the date of the fi

Answer 1

With Java 8:

public static boolean deleteFilesForPathByPrefix(final String path, final String prefix) {
    boolean success = true;
    try (DirectoryStream<Path> newDirectoryStream = Files.newDirectoryStream(Paths.get(path), prefix + "*")) {
        for (final Path newDirectoryStreamItem : newDirectoryStream) {
            Files.delete(newDirectoryStreamItem);
        }
    } catch (final Exception e) {
        success = false;
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return success;
}

Simple version:

public static void deleteFilesForPathByPrefix(final Path path, final String prefix) {
    try (DirectoryStream<Path> newDirectoryStream = Files.newDirectoryStream(path, prefix + "*")) {
        for (final Path newDirectoryStreamItem : newDirectoryStream) {
            Files.delete(newDirectoryStreamItem);
        }
    } catch (final Exception e) { // empty
    }
}

Modify the Path/String argument as needed. You can even convert between File and Path. Path is preferred for Java >= 8.

Answer 2

I agree with BegemoT.

However, just one optimization: If you need a simple FilenameFilter, there is a class in the Google packages. So, in this case you do not even have to create your own anonymous class.

import com.google.common.io.PatternFilenameFilter;

final File folder = ...
final File[] files = folder.listFiles(new PatternFilenameFilter("dailyReport_08.*\\.txt"));

// loop through the files
for ( final File file : files ) {
    if ( !file.delete() ) {
        System.err.println( "Can't remove " + file.getAbsolutePath() );
    }
}

Enjoy !

Answer 3

Have a look at Apache FileUtils which offers many handy file manipulations.

Answer 4

No, you can't. Java is rather low-level language -- comparing with shell-script -- so things like this must be done more explicetly. You should search for files with required mask with folder.listFiles(FilenameFilter), and iterate through returned array deleting each entry. Like this:

final File folder = ...
final File[] files = folder.listFiles( new FilenameFilter() {
    @Override
    public boolean accept( final File dir,
                           final String name ) {
        return name.matches( "dailyReport_08.*\\.txt" );
    }
} );
for ( final File file : files ) {
    if ( !file.delete() ) {
        System.err.println( "Can't remove " + file.getAbsolutePath() );
    }
}

Answer 5

Java 8 :

final File downloadDirectory = new File("directoryPath");   
    final File[] files = downloadDirectory.listFiles( (dir,name) -> name.matches("dailyReport_.*?" ));
    Arrays.asList(files).stream().forEach(File::delete)