Need some help with a copy command in a shell

[Hekmat]

Hi, I'm writing a simple Shell using Java for Windows for a uni course. So far things have been pretty straight forward using the java File class, I've made dir, cd, cd.. and a couple of other commands. Now on to the question:

I'm trying to make a copy command to copy a file and select a destination for it.
So far I've gotten by using the File class but I don't see anything in the class to copy a file. I tried using the boolean renameTo(String destination) command but it's not working (for some reason I haven't been able to figure out). I'd really appreciate some help with this

...
           
            File file1 = new File(currentPath);
            File file2 = new File("C:\\");

            boolean [B]test[/B] = file1.renameTo(file2);
            if(!test)
                System.out.println("This file already exists and/or move operation failed");
        }

test returns false, and I can't figure out why. Can anyone think of another way for me to copy a file to a specific destination?

Thanks for your time, hopefully someone can help me out!

Edit: Can't seem to edit the thread name to add a [solved] tag, is that a moderator thing or am I blind, heh.

[pbrockway2]

As you've found renameTo() is for renaming a file, not copying it. And as the API says its behaviour is different on different platforms.

You're going to have to actually copy the file: read it using a stream based on one File instance and spit it out again using another stream based on another File instance.

Try using FileInputStream/FileOutputStream which are described in detail in Sun's Tutorial: Byte Streams. You might be able to do better than their example which reads one byte at a time.

[Hekmat]

Thanks for the help. I did think of File(IO)Stream, but will that work for files that aren't text files? Like a .exe file for example?

[whwillisiv]

Will work with any file of any sort ... byte by byte.

[pbrockway2]

Will work with any file of any sort ... byte by byte.

++

OP: The next section in the Tutorial after "Byte Streams" is "Character Streams". They don't dwell on it but character streams (xxxReader/xxxWriter) are used where the bytes of a file represent characters in some (well known) way. For other sorts of file - that is for files like .exe where the bytes don't represent characters or where you don't know or don't care about that representation - use the byte streams: xxxInputStream/xxxOutputStream.

[Hekmat]

Thanks again for the help guys, that got it done :)