以前我一直以为File#renameTo(File)方法与OS下面的 move/mv 命令是相同的，可以达到改名、移动文件的目的。不过后来经常发现问题：File#renameTo(File)方法会返回失败(false)，文件没有移动，又查不出原因，再后来干脆弃用该方法，自己实现一个copy方法，问题倒是再也没有出现过。
昨天老板同学又遇到这个问题，File#renameTo(File)方法在windows下面工作的好好的，在linux下偶尔又失灵了。回到家我扫了一遍JDK中File#renameTo(File)方法的源代码，发现它调用的是一个本地的方法(native method)，无法再跟踪下去。网上有人说该方法在window下是正常的，在linux下面是不正常的。这个很难说通，SUN不可能搞出这种平台不一致的代码出来啊。
后面在SUN的官方论坛上看到有人提到这个问题“works on windows, don't work on linux”，后面有人回复说是“file systems”不一样。究竟怎么不一样呢？还是没有想出来...
后面在一个论坛里面发现了某人关于这个问题的阐述：
引用 In the Unix'esque O/S's you cannot renameTo() across file systems. This behavior is different than the Unix "mv" command. When crossing file systems mv does a copy and delete which is what you'll have to do if this is the case.
The same thing would happen on Windows if you tried to renameTo a different drive, i.e. C: -> D:
终于明白咯。
做个实验：
Java代码
- File sourceFile = new File("c:/test.txt");
- File targetFile1 = new File("e:/test.txt");
- File targetFile2 = new File("d:/test.txt");
- System.out.println("source file is exist? " + sourceFile.exists()
- + ", source file => " + sourceFile);
- System.out.println(targetFile1 + " is exist? " + targetFile1.exists());
- System.out.println("rename to " + targetFile1 + " => "
- + sourceFile.renameTo(targetFile1));
- System.out.println("source file is exist? " + sourceFile.exists()
- + ", source file => " + sourceFile);
- System.out.println(targetFile2 + " is exist? " + targetFile2.exists());
- System.out.println("rename to " + targetFile2 + " => "
- + sourceFile.renameTo(targetFile2));
File sourceFile = new File("c:/test.txt");
File targetFile1 = new File("e:/test.txt");
File targetFile2 = new File("d:/test.txt");
System.out.println("source file is exist? " + sourceFile.exists()
+ ", source file => " + sourceFile);
System.out.println(targetFile1 + " is exist? " + targetFile1.exists());
System.out.println("rename to " + targetFile1 + " => "
+ sourceFile.renameTo(targetFile1));
System.out.println("source file is exist? " + sourceFile.exists()
+ ", source file => " + sourceFile);
System.out.println(targetFile2 + " is exist? " + targetFile2.exists());
System.out.println("rename to " + targetFile2 + " => "
+ sourceFile.renameTo(targetFile2));
结果：
Java代码
- source file is exist? true, source file => c:\test.txt
- e:\test.txt is exist? false
- rename to e:\test.txt => false
- source file is exist? true, source file => c:\test.txt
- d:\test.txt is exist? false
- rename to d:\test.txt => true
source file is exist? true, source file => c:\test.txt
e:\test.txt is exist? false
rename to e:\test.txt => false
source file is exist? true, source file => c:\test.txt
d:\test.txt is exist? false
rename to d:\test.txt => true
注意看结果，从C盘到E盘失败了，从C盘到D盘成功了。因为我的电脑C、D两个盘是NTFS格式的，而E盘是FAT32格式的。所以从C到E就是上面文章所说的"file systems"不一样。从C到D由于同是NTFS分区，所以不存在这个问题，当然就成功了。
果然是不能把File#renameTo(File)当作move方法使用。
可以考虑使用apache组织的commons-io包里面的FileUtils#copyFile(File,File)和FileUtils#copyFileToDirectory(File,File)方法实现copy的效果。至于删除嘛，我想如果要求不是那么精确，可以调用File#deleteOnExit()方法，在虚拟机终止的时候，删除掉这个目录或文件。