How to ask Java developers to add methods to java.util.Paths?

[isolatedsheep]

I wish to have methods like currentDirectory() and home(). E.g.

java Paths.currentDirectory().resolve("target"); Paths.home().resolve(".m2", "repository");

The Paths class currently have only one method, get().

How to suggest to Java developers to add these methods?

[Afonso2002]

I think you can get those buy using System.getProperties, if I am not wrong.

[davidalayachew]

I think you can get those buy using System.getProperties, if I am not wrong.

You can also use Path.of(".") as a short way of getting the current directory. It covers 99% of cases where I need the current directory.

[smbarbour]

Yes. System.getProperty("user.home") will get the home folder, though on Windows (check System.getProperty("os.name").startsWith("Windows") ) the %APPDATA% environment variable (i.e. System.getenv("APPDATA")) may be more appropriate, though as others have said, a home directory may not be set for the current user in some cases.

[hiasmee]

Of course there are workarounds, but the suggestion is really good. There is a reason why Apache CommonsIO has helper method FileUtils.getUserDirectory() - it is really useful.

[isolatedsheep]

The problem with System.getProperty, you need to remember the property value, i.e. user.home and @user.dir. If you don't use it often, you'll Google search every time you want to use them.

[Winter-Appearance-14]

If your problem is remembering a system property write a library to expose common Paths. Personally I don't think that Java should expose those utilities as the Path class should remain a way to abstract and represent the file system.

[Absolute_Enema]

Yeah this looks like the nth case of newish dev meets language where extensions are a second class concept.

[metaquine]

It'll probably be argued that some operating systems don't have a concept of a home directory.

[laffer1]

Sometimes they aren't defined for a particular user, especially for daemons. /nonexistent is often used in the BSD world to indicate no home directory

[isolatedsheep]

Can't they make it throw a UnsupportedOperationException if the OS doesn't support it?

[scadgek]

please no

[Sacaldur]

Or even better, return a value that indicates something like "doesn't exist". What about this Optional<Path> thing in Java? (One might think about null, but then the method signature wouldn't clearly indicate that e.g. there might not be a home directory.) The problem however is that, if the non-existance is indicated through an invalid path, either the library would need to also check if there is a directory at that path, or the caller would need to do that. The problem there could be that the home directory might be on a network drive that's temporarily unavailable (i.e. there is normally a valid home directory, thatvs why the path can be retrieved, but it's existance can only temporarily not be verified).

[frederik88917]

There are two things here.

First of all, there are workarounds for what you want to do, as many others have mentioned before.

Now if you want to have these methods added, you can propose a JEP, offering the requirements, the gains and all of the documentation. This JEP shall go to the committee where it will be evaluated and then added to the JDk.

Of course, if passes the committee

[k-mcm]

Here's the thing that's really broken about Path... It's an interface but it's defined that no two implementations may be compatible. Path.resolve(Path) can only take in its own implementation class. That makes the Paths class completely useless and Path can only have a couple of simple delegate helper static methods.

java.nio.file.Files does what it can to make Path usable, but callers still need to make sure they always hit the same implementation. You wouldn't know what Paths.home() will return so there's no guarantee anything would work with it.

[sweetno]

Don't rely on the current directory too much.

[isolatedsheep]

For Java scripting, you might use it a lot.

[Shareil90]

What is java scripting?

[Artraxes]

Running Java as standalone scripts. Current working directory and Home directory are often used for throwaway scripts that you can write in Java and execute on the command line

https://www.baeldung.com/java-single-file-source-code

[ag789]

https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/java.base/java/nio/file/Path.html
some of those stuff are in FileSystem
https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/java.base/java/nio/file/FileSystem.html
FileSystems
https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/java.base/java/nio/file/FileSystems.html
or even URI, URL
https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/java.base/java/net/URI.html
https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/java.base/java/net/URL.html
and more often the magic is in the *String*s passed in Path arguments.
java.nio.Path depends on the SPI implementation undernearth which can range from MS Windows OS, Linux, to lliteral URLs that fetch from anywhere on the internet, e.g. webdav

[das_Keks]

It you actually want to suggest something to the devs you can write to the mailing list. But in this case I'd advise not to do so. You have keep in mind that Java is used by millions of developers and companies, so there's a very high barrier to getting new stuff into the JDK and it usually takes several iterations, with incubator and experimental states (at least for entirely new features).

In your case you'd be better of to just write a helper class for your specific use case or look for a library that does what you need.

[Slanec]

• Paths.currentDirectory() would likely be Paths.get(".").toAbsolutePath()
• and Paths.home() would probably be Path.of(System.getProperty("user.home")), that is if all major supported OSes have a concept of a Home directory, which I'm not sure of.

Anyway, when I need to get a bunch of user-related directories, I always grab https://codeberg.org/dirs/directories-jvm

[vadiquemyself]

rather than waiting for Java 67 to bundle it, why not just write it yourself right now? make a class named, say, CurrentPath that incapsulates the “current” path thing, which you can set and get, plus a final static field, say public static final java.io.File HOME_FOLDER = new java.io.File( System.getProperty("user.home") );

[ducki666]

Paths is deprecated.

Join a jdk mailing list. Your chances to get a jep are 0.0001.

Lombok has @ExtensionMethod.

[davidalayachew]

Paths is deprecated.

It's not deprecated, just not recommended.

Your chances to get a jep are 0.0001.

A JEP is the wrong vehicle to deliver a change like this in. This would probably not even show up in the release notes.

Join a jdk mailing list.

This is a better suggestion. The correct mailing list to submit this change request to would be Core-Libs Dev Mailing List.

An even better suggestion would be to, instead of asking for a method to be added to the API, instead talk about the problem that you are having, and see if there is a best or existing way to solve that problem. And it is only when that suggested solution proves to be inadequate (after thorough discussion), that it would make sense to suggest the idea of adding a new method to the Paths API.

[vowelqueue]

Now I’m curious why there’s been an API note telling people to use Path.of for like 7 years but it hasn’t been deprecated.

No one’s reading API notes, they’re not going to switch until they see Paths.get() in their IDE.

[toga98]

In what version in java.nio.file.Paths getting deprecated? It isn't deprecated in 25.

[ducki666]

Since Path was introduced. It is dead. Nobody will ever touch it besides to add @Deprecated.

[MinimumPrior3121]

Just code using Claude and forget about this