How to rename (or copy) a file

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not_55

How to rename (or copy) a file

in General Discussion • Other • 7 months ago

I have a number of image files that I'd like to rename (or copy each to a new file with a new name leaving the original in place). Can anyone tell me how to do this reliably with Processing on Windows - from what I've read it seems that this can be a bit of a hack even in Java proper.

TIA

Paul.

Replies(6)

PhiLho

Re: How to rename (or copy) a file

7 months ago

Renaming is trivial: see the renameTo(File dest) method of the File Java class.
Copying is harder, indeed. In old Java, you have to loop over the bytes of the file to copy them to a new file. IIRC, in Java 7; this is easier.

not_55

Re: How to rename (or copy) a file

7 months ago

PhiLho, thanks for that - I had read up on renameTo but it seemed that lots of people were having issues with paths, last thing I want is to be fighting the operating system as well! :D

not_55

Re: How to rename (or copy) a file

7 months ago

Hmmm... doesn't seem to work. In essence the program is designed to replace unwanted characters in filenames. Here's the nuts and bolts of what I have...

File originalFile, newFile;
String originalFileName, newFileName;
...
...
originalFileName = aLine; // the original name of the file
originalFile = new File(originalFileName);
...
...
// string 'aLine' is modified (replacing unwanted characters) here so it holds the new file name
...
newFileName = aLine;
newFile = new File(newFileName);
originalFile.renameTo(newFile);

If I print the contents of the two strings originalFileName and newFileName they are correct, for example:

test'a!file.jpg
test-a-file.jpg

My guess is that this line...

newFile = new File(newFileName);

is creating a file with the new name and therefore preventing the old file from being renamed. If so how do I correct it?

TIA

not_55

Re: How to rename (or copy) a file

7 months ago

I just checked that there's nothing wrong with my code by inseting these lines...

PImage img;
...
...
img = loadImage(originalFileName);
image(img, 0, 0);
img.save(newFileName);

and it works fine. The trouble is I have a large number of large images to rename so loading and resaving will be painfully slow.

PhiLho

Re: How to rename (or copy) a file

7 months ago

Beware: loadImage is aware of the location of the sketch and of the data folder, while File isn't.
Try new File(dataPath(fileName)) instead (for example).

not_55

Re: How to rename (or copy) a file

7 months ago

Yes, that works thank you!

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