Overview (lif-fs Documentation)

Core
Package	Description
ca.uqac.lif.fs	Basic classes for manipulating files in various file systems.

Net
Package	Description
ca.uqac.lif.fs.net	File systems involving communication over a network.

Java provides various ways to access and manipulate files; however, depending on where these files are located, they are exposed through different classes and methods. If the files are on a local folder, they are accessed using the File class and its associated methods; if they are inside a zip file, the ZipInputStream and ZipOutputStream objects must be used according to a completely different workflow; if the same files are accessible over an FTP connection, yet other objects and methods are required.

The lif-fs library defines an interface called FileSystem that exposes files through a simple and uniform set of methods:

open and close start and end the interaction with the file system
writeTo is given a filename and returns an OutputStream to which data can be written
readFrom is given a filename and returns an InputStream from which data can be read
rm deletes a file
mkdir and rmdir respectively create and delete a folder
ls lists the contents of a folder
chdir changes the current directory; pushd and popd allow a stack of current directories to be pushed/popped