Can I compose two file paths without needing their toString() methods?

Imagine I have a 'base' path object, denoting a directory, and a 'relative' path object denoting some file within the base.

I would expect that code to look somewhat like

AbsolutePath base = new AbsolutePath("/tmp/adirectory");
RelativePath relativeFil开发者_如何转开发ePath = new RelativePath("filex.txt");
AbsolutePath absoluteFile = base.append( relativeFilePath );

But in the Java API (which I don't yet know very well) I find only File, with which I can do nothing better than

File base = new File("/tmp/adirectory");
File relativeFilePath = new File("filex.txt");
File absoluteFile = base.toString() 
                  + File.separator 
                  + relativeFilePath.toString();

Is there a better way?

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The closest you can get with java.io.File is the File(File, String) constructor:

File base = ...;
File relative = ...;
File combined = new File(base, relative.toString());

If you can use the Path class introduced in Java 7, then you can use the resolve() method, which does exactly what you want:

Path base = ...;
Path relative = ...;
Path combined = base.resolve(relative);

Please note that if base is not an absolute path, then combined won't be absolute either! If you need an absolute path, then for a File you'd use getAbsoluteFile() and for a Path you'd use toAbsoutePath().

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Yes. new File(base, "filex.txt") will create a file names "filex.txt" in the directory base.

There is no need to create a relativeFilePath File instance with just the relative name if what you want to do is make it relative to another directory than the current one.

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how about:

File base = new File("/tmp/adirectory");
File absoluteFile = new File(base, "filex.txt");

EDIT: Too late @JB Nizet pipped me at the post...

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The File class has some constructors which may be of interest to you:

File base = new File("/tmp/adirectory");
File absolute = new File(base, "filex.txt");
File absolute2 = new File("/tmp/adirectory", "filex.txt");