What's the difference between getPath(), getAbsolutePath(), and getCanonicalPath() in Java?

What's the difference between getPath(), getAbsolutePath(), and getCanonicalPath() in Java?

And when do I use each one?

Consider these filenames:

C:\temp\file.txt - This is a path, an absolute path, and a canonical path.

.\file.txt - This is a path. It's neither an absolute path nor a canonical path.

C:\temp\myapp\bin\..\\..\file.txt - This is a path and an absolute path. It's not a canonical path.

A canonical path is always an absolute path.

Converting from a path to a canonical path makes it absolute (usually tack on the current working directory so e.g. ./file.txt becomes c:/temp/file.txt). The canonical path of a file just "purifies" the path, removing and resolving stuff like ..\ and resolving symlinks (on unixes).

Also note the following example with nio.Paths:

String canonical_path_string = "C:\\Windows\\System32\\";
String absolute_path_string = "C:\\Windows\\System32\\drivers\\..\\";

System.out.println(Paths.get(canonical_path_string).getParent());
System.out.println(Paths.get(absolute_path_string).getParent());

While both paths refer to the same location, the output will be quite different:

C:\Windows
C:\Windows\System32\drivers

The best way I have found to get a feel for things like this is to try them out:

import java.io.File;
public class PathTesting {
    public static void main(String [] args) {
        File f = new File("test/.././file.txt");
        System.out.println(f.getPath());
        System.out.println(f.getAbsolutePath());
        try {
            System.out.println(f.getCanonicalPath());
        }
        catch(Exception e) {}
    }
}

Your output will be something like:

test\..\.\file.txt
C:\projects\sandbox\trunk\test\..\.\file.txt
C:\projects\sandbox\trunk\file.txt

So, getPath() gives you the path based on the File object, which may or may not be relative; getAbsolutePath() gives you an absolute path to the file; and getCanonicalPath() gives you the unique absolute path to the file. Notice that there are a huge number of absolute paths that point to the same file, but only one canonical path.

When to use each? Depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but if you were trying to see if two Files are pointing at the same file on disk, you could compare their canonical paths. Just one example.

In short:

• getPath() gets the path string that the File object was constructed with, and it may be relative current directory.
• getAbsolutePath() gets the path string after resolving it against the current directory if it's relative, resulting in a fully qualified path.
• getCanonicalPath() gets the path string after resolving any relative path against current directory, and removes any relative pathing (. and ..), and any file system links to return a path which the file system considers the canonical means to reference the file system object to which it points.

Also, each of these has a File equivalent which returns the corresponding File object.

Note that IMO, Java got the implementation of an "absolute" path wrong; it really should remove any relative path elements in an absolute path. The canonical form would then remove any FS links or junctions in the path.