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File manager for tools operating on Java™ programming language
source and class files. In this context, file means an
abstraction of regular files and other sources of data.
When constructing new JavaFileObjects, the file manager must
determine where to create them. For example, if a file manager
manages regular files on a file system, it would most likely have a
current/working directory to use as default location when creating
or finding files. A number of hints can be provided to a file
manager as to where to create files. Any file manager might choose
to ignore these hints.
Some methods in this interface use class names. Such class
names must be given in the Java Virtual Machine internal form of
fully qualified class and interface names. For convenience '.'
and '/' are interchangeable. The internal form is defined in
chapter four of the
Java
Virtual Machine Specification.
Discussion: this means that the names
"java/lang.package-info", "java/lang/package-info",
"java.lang.package-info", are valid and equivalent. Compare to
binary name as defined in the
Java Language
Specification (JLS) section 13.1 "The Form of a Binary".
The case of names is significant. All names should be treated
as case-sensitive. For example, some file systems have
case-insensitive, case-aware file names. File objects representing
such files should take care to preserve case by using File.getCanonicalFile() or similar means. If the system is
not case-aware, file objects must use other means to preserve case.
Relative names: some
methods in this interface use relative names. A relative name is a
non-null, non-empty sequence of path segments separated by '/'.
'.' or '..' are invalid path segments. A valid relative name must
match the "path-rootless" rule of RFC 3986,
section 3.3. Informally, this should be true:
All methods in this interface might throw a SecurityException.
An object of this interface is not required to support
multi-threaded access, that is, be synchronized. However, it must
support concurrent access to different file objects created by this
object.
Implementation note: a consequence of this requirement
is that a trivial implementation of output to a JarOutputStream is not a sufficient implementation.
That is, rather than creating a JavaFileObject that returns the
JarOutputStream directly, the contents must be cached until closed
and then written to the JarOutputStream.
Unless explicitly allowed, all methods in this interface might
throw a NullPointerException if given a null argument.
Gets a class loader for loading plug-ins from the given
location. For example, to load annotation processors, a
compiler will request a class loader for the ANNOTATION_PROCESSOR_PATH location.
Parameters:
location - a location
Returns:
a class loader for the given location; or null
if loading plug-ins from the given location is disabled or if
the location is not known
Throws:
SecurityException - if a class loader can not be created
in the current security context
Compares two file objects and return true if they represent the
same underlying object.
Parameters:
a - a file object
b - a file object
Returns:
true if the given file objects represent the same
underlying object
Throws:
IllegalArgumentException - if either of the arguments
were created with another file manager and this file manager
does not support foreign file objects
Handles one option. If current is an option to this
file manager it will consume any arguments to that option from
remaining and return true, otherwise return false.
Parameters:
current - current option
remaining - remaining options
Returns:
true if this option was handled by this file manager,
false otherwise
Gets a file object for input
representing the specified class of the specified kind in the
given location.
Parameters:
location - a location
className - the name of a class
kind - the kind of file, must be one of SOURCE or CLASS
Returns:
a file object, might return null if the
file does not exist
Throws:
IllegalArgumentException - if the location is not known
to this file manager and the file manager does not support
unknown locations, or if the kind is not valid
IOException - if an I/O error occurred, or if close() has been called and this file manager cannot be
reopened
Gets a file object for output
representing the specified class of the specified kind in the
given location.
Optionally, this file manager might consider the sibling as
a hint for where to place the output. The exact semantics of
this hint is unspecified. The JDK compiler, javac, for
example, will place class files in the same directories as
originating source files unless a class file output directory
is provided. To facilitate this behavior, javac might provide
the originating source file as sibling when calling this
method.
Parameters:
location - a location
className - the name of a class
kind - the kind of file, must be one of SOURCE or CLASS
sibling - a file object to be used as hint for placement;
might be null
Returns:
a file object for output
Throws:
IllegalArgumentException - if sibling is not known to
this file manager, or if the location is not known to this file
manager and the file manager does not support unknown
locations, or if the kind is not valid
IOException - if an I/O error occurred, or if close() has been called and this file manager cannot be
reopened
Informally, the file object returned by this method is
located in the concatenation of the location, package name, and
relative name. For example, to locate the properties file
"resources/compiler.properties" in the package
"com.sun.tools.javac" in the SOURCE_PATH location, this method
might be called like so:
If the call was executed on Windows, with SOURCE_PATH set to
"C:\Documents and Settings\UncleBob\src\share\classes",
a valid result would be a file object representing the file
"C:\Documents and Settings\UncleBob\src\share\classes\com\sun\tools\javac\resources\compiler.properties".
Parameters:
location - a location
packageName - a package name
relativeName - a relative name
Returns:
a file object, might return null if the file
does not exist
Throws:
IllegalArgumentException - if the location is not known
to this file manager and the file manager does not support
unknown locations, or if relativeName is not valid
IOException - if an I/O error occurred, or if close() has been called and this file manager cannot be
reopened
Gets a file object for output
representing the specified relative
name in the specified package in the given location.
Optionally, this file manager might consider the sibling as
a hint for where to place the output. The exact semantics of
this hint is unspecified. The JDK compiler, javac, for
example, will place class files in the same directories as
originating source files unless a class file output directory
is provided. To facilitate this behavior, javac might provide
the originating source file as sibling when calling this
method.
Informally, the file object returned by this method is
located in the concatenation of the location, package name, and
relative name or next to the sibling argument. See getFileForInput for an example.
Parameters:
location - a location
packageName - a package name
relativeName - a relative name
sibling - a file object to be used as hint for placement;
might be null
Returns:
a file object
Throws:
IllegalArgumentException - if sibling is not known to
this file manager, or if the location is not known to this file
manager and the file manager does not support unknown
locations, or if relativeName is not valid
IOException - if an I/O error occurred, or if close() has been called and this file manager cannot be
reopened
Releases any resources opened by this file manager directly or
indirectly. This might render this file manager useless and
the effect of subsequent calls to methods on this object or any
objects obtained through this object is undefined unless
explicitly allowed. However, closing a file manager which has
already been closed has no effect.
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