Java - Search for files in a directory

This is supposed to be simple, but I can't get it - "Write a program that searches for a particular file name in a given directory." I've found a few examples of a hardcoded filename and directory, but I need both the dir and file name to be as entered by the user.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String fileName = args[0]; // For the filename declaration
    String directory;     
    boolean found;

    File dir = new File(directory);

    File[] matchingFiles = dir.listFiles(new FilenameFilter() {
        public boolean accept(File dir, String fileName) {
            return true;
        }
    });

}

you can try something like this:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
class FindFile 
{
    public void findFile(String name,File file)
    {
        File[] list = file.listFiles();
        if(list!=null)
        for (File fil : list)
        {
            if (fil.isDirectory())
            {
                findFile(name,fil);
            }
            else if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(fil.getName()))
            {
                System.out.println(fil.getParentFile());
            }
        }
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) 
    {
        FindFile ff = new FindFile();
        Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);
        System.out.println("Enter the file to be searched.. " );
        String name = scan.next();
        System.out.println("Enter the directory where to search ");
        String directory = scan.next();
        ff.findFile(name,new File(directory));
    }
}

Here is the output:

J:\Java\misc\load>java FindFile
Enter the file to be searched..
FindFile.java
Enter the directory where to search
j:\java\
FindFile.java Found in->j:\java\misc\load

Using Java 8+ features we can write the code in few lines:

protected static Collection<Path> find(String fileName, String searchDirectory) throws IOException {
    try (Stream<Path> files = Files.walk(Paths.get(searchDirectory))) {
        return files
                .filter(f -> f.getFileName().toString().equals(fileName))
                .collect(Collectors.toList());

    }
}

Files.walk returns a Stream<Path> which is "walking the file tree rooted at" the given searchDirectory. To select the desired files only a filter is applied on the Stream files. It compares the file name of a Path with the given fileName.

Note that the documentation of Files.walk requires

This method must be used within a try-with-resources statement or similar control structure to ensure that the stream's open directories are closed promptly after the stream's operations have completed.

I'm using the try-resource-statement.

For advanced searches an alternative is to use a PathMatcher:

protected static Collection<Path> find(String searchDirectory, PathMatcher matcher) throws IOException {
    try (Stream<Path> files = Files.walk(Paths.get(searchDirectory))) {
        return files
                .filter(matcher::matches)
                .collect(Collectors.toList());

    }
}

An example how to use it to find a certain file:

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    String searchDirectory = args[0];
    String fileName = args[1];
    PathMatcher matcher = FileSystems.getDefault().getPathMatcher("regex:.*" + fileName);
    Collection<Path> find = find(searchDirectory, matcher);
    System.out.println(find);
}

More about it: Oracle Finding Files tutorial

With **Java 8* there is an alternative that use streams and lambdas:

public static void recursiveFind(Path path, Consumer<Path> c) {
  try (DirectoryStream<Path> newDirectoryStream = Files.newDirectoryStream(path)) {
    StreamSupport.stream(newDirectoryStream.spliterator(), false)
                 .peek(p -> {
                   c.accept(p);
                   if (p.toFile()
                        .isDirectory()) {
                     recursiveFind(p, c);
                   }
                 })
                 .collect(Collectors.toList());
  } catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
  }
}

So this will print all the files recursively:

recursiveFind(Paths.get("."), System.out::println);

And this will search for a file:

recursiveFind(Paths.get("."), p -> { 
  if (p.toFile().getName().toString().equals("src")) {
    System.out.println(p);
  }
});