Groovy Goodness: Working with Files

When we write code in Java to work with files we must write a lot of boilerplate code to make sure all streams are opened and closed correctly and provide exception handling. The Commons IO package already helps, but Groovy makes working with files so easy. Groovy adds a lot of useful methods to the java.io.File class. We can use simple properties to write and read text, methods to traverse the file system and methods to filter contents.

Here is a Groovy script with different samples of working with files:

// Normal way of creating file objects.
def file1 = new File('groovy1.txt')
def file2 = new File('groovy2.txt')
def file3 = new File('groovy3.txt')

// Writing to the files with the write method:
file1.write 'Working with files the Groovy way is easy.\n'

// Using the leftShift operator:
file1 << 'See how easy it is to add text to a file.\n'

// Using the text property:
file2.text = '''We can even use the text property of
a file to set a complete block of text at once.'''

// Or a writer object:
file3.withWriter('UTF-8') { writer ->
    writer.write('We can also use writers to add contents.')
}

// Reading contents of files to an array:
def lines = file1.readLines()
assert 2 == lines.size()
assert 'Working with files the Groovy way is easy.' == lines[0]

// Or we read with the text property:
assert 'We can also use writers to add contents.' == file3.text

// Or with a reader:
count = 0
file2.withReader { reader -> 
    while (line = reader.readLine()) {
        switch (count) {
            case 0: 
                assert 'We can even use the text property of' == line
                break
            case 1:
                assert 'a file to set a complete block of text at once.' == line
                break
        }
        count++
    }
}

// We can also read contents with a filter:
sw = new StringWriter()
file1.filterLine(sw) { it =~ /Groovy/ }
assert 'Working with files the Groovy way is easy.\r\n' == sw.toString()

// We can look for files in the directory with different methods.
// See for a complete list the File GDK documentation.
files = []
new File('.').eachFileMatch(~/^groovy.*\.txt$/) { files << it.name }
assert ['groovy1.txt', 'groovy2.txt', 'groovy3.txt'] == files

// Delete all files:
files.each { new File(it).delete() }

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August 27, 2009

Groovy Goodness: Working with Files