Java find relative path
In this tutorial we’re going to show how to find relative paths between directories using java.nio.file.Path from Java NIO.
Relative path between absolute paths
Finding relative path between two absolute paths works perfectly fine:
Path path1 = Paths.get("/user1/bin"); Path path2 = Paths.get("/user2/bin"); System.out.printf("Path from %s to %s: %s%n", path1, path2, path1.relativize(path2));
The code produces a nice path:
Path from /user1/bin to /user2/bin: ../user2/bin
Relative path between relative paths
Path path1 = Paths.get("bin"); Path path2 = Paths.get("doc"); System.out.printf("Path from %s to %s: %s%n", path1, path2, path1.relativize(path2));
Calculated path is:
Path from bin to doc: ../doc
Relative path between absolute and relative paths
try { Path path1 = Paths.get("/user1/bin"); Path path2 = Paths.get("doc"); path1.relativize(path2); } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) { System.out.printf("Path from %s to %s:%n%s", path1, path2, e); }
Unfortunately the result is IllegalArgumentException:
Path from /user1/bin to doc: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: 'other' is different type of Path
When one of the paths is relative and the other one is absolute Path.relativize() will throw the exception with message: ‘other’ is different type of Path.
References:
- Check out Java IO Tutorial to learn more about Java NIO!