A directory lister
Suppose you’d like to see a directory listing. The File object can be listed in two ways. If you call list( ) with no arguments, you’ll get the full list that the File object contains. However, if you want a restricted list—for example, if you want all of the files with an extension of .java—then you use a “directory filter,” which is a class that tells how to select the File objects for display.
Here’s the code for the example. Note that the result has been effortlessly sorted (alphabetically) using the java.utils.Arrays.sort( ) method and the AlphabeticComparator defined in Chapter 11:
//: c12:DirList.java
// Displays directory listing using regular expressions.
// {Args: "D.*\.java"}
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.regex.*;
import com.bruceeckel.util.*;
public class DirList {
public static void main(String[] args) {
File path = new File(".");
String[] list;
if(args.length == 0)
list = path.list();
else
list = path.list(new DirFilter(args[0]));
Arrays.sort(list, new AlphabeticComparator());
for(int i = 0; i < list.length; i++)
System.out.println(list[i]);
}
}
class DirFilter implements FilenameFilter {
private Pattern pattern;
public DirFilter(String regex) {
pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
}
public boolean accept(File dir, String name) {
// Strip path information, search for regex:
return pattern.matcher(
new File(name).getName()).matches();
}
} ///:~
The DirFilter class “implements” the interface FilenameFilter. It’s useful to see how simple the FilenameFilter interface is:
public interface FilenameFilter {
boolean accept(File dir, String name);
}
It says all that this type of object does is provide a method called accept( ). The whole reason behind the creation of this class is to provide the accept( ) method to the list( ) method so that list( ) can “call back” accept( ) to determine which file names should be included in the list. Thus, this structure is often referred to as a callback. More specifically, this is an example of the Strategy Pattern, because list( ) implements basic functionality, and you provide the Strategy in the form of a FilenameFilter in order to complete the algorithm necessary for list( ) to provide its service. Because list( ) takes a FilenameFilter object as its argument, it means that you can pass an object of any class that implements FilenameFilter to choose (even at run time) how the list( ) method will behave. The purpose of a callback is to provide flexibility in the behavior of code.
DirFilter shows that just because an interface contains only a set of methods, you’re not restricted to writing only those methods. (You must at least provide definitions for all the methods in an interface, however.) In this case, the DirFilter constructor is also created.
The accept( ) method must accept a File object representing the directory that a particular file is found in, and a String containing the name of that file. You might choose to use or ignore either of these arguments, but you will probably at least use the file name. Remember that the list( ) method is calling accept( ) for each of the file names in the directory object to see which one should be included; this is indicated by the boolean result returned by accept( ).
To make sure the element you’re working with is only the file name and contains no path information, all you have to do is take the String object and create a File object out of it, then call getName( ), which strips away all the path information (in a platform-independent way). Then accept( ) uses a regular expression matcher object to see if the regular expression regex matches the name of the file. Using accept( ), the list( ) method returns an array.
Anonymous inner classes
This example is ideal for rewriting using an anonymous inner class (described in Chapter 8). As a first cut, a method filter( ) is created that returns a reference to a FilenameFilter:
//: c12:DirList2.java
// Uses anonymous inner classes.
// {Args: "D.*\.java"}
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.regex.*;
import com.bruceeckel.util.*;
public class DirList2 {
public static FilenameFilter filter(final String regex) {
// Creation of anonymous inner class:
return new FilenameFilter() {
private Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
public boolean accept(File dir, String name) {
return pattern.matcher(
new File(name).getName()).matches();
}
}; // End of anonymous inner class
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
File path = new File(".");
String[] list;
if(args.length == 0)
list = path.list();
else
list = path.list(filter(args[0]));
Arrays.sort(list, new AlphabeticComparator());
for(int i = 0; i < list.length; i++)
System.out.println(list[i]);
}
} ///:~
Note that the argument to filter( ) must be final. This is required by the anonymous inner class so that it can use an object from outside its scope.
This design is an improvement because the FilenameFilter class is now tightly bound to DirList2. However, you can take this approach one step further and define the anonymous inner class as an argument to list( ), in which case it’s even smaller:
//: c12:DirList3.java
// Building the anonymous inner class "in-place."
// {Args: "D.*\.java"}
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.regex.*;
import com.bruceeckel.util.*;
public class DirList3 {
public static void main(final String[] args) {
File path = new File(".");
String[] list;
if(args.length == 0)
list = path.list();
else
list = path.list(new FilenameFilter() {
private Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(args[0]);
public boolean accept(File dir, String name) {
return pattern.matcher(
new File(name).getName()).matches();
}
});
Arrays.sort(list, new AlphabeticComparator());
for(int i = 0; i < list.length; i++)
System.out.println(list[i]);
}
} ///:~
The argument to main( ) is now final, since the anonymous inner class uses args[0] directly.
This shows you how anonymous inner classes allow the creation of specific, one-off classes to solve problems. One benefit of this approach is that it keeps the code that solves a particular problem isolated together in one spot. On the other hand, it is not always as easy to read, so you must use it judiciously.
