Java better way to delete file if exists

Question

We need to call file.exists() before file.delete() before we can delete a file E.g.

 File file = ...;
 if (file.exists()){
     file.delete();
 }  

Currently in all our project we create a static method in some util class to wrap this code. Is there some other way to achieve the same , so that we not need to copy our utils file in every other project.

Answer 1

Starting from Java 7 you can use deleteIfExists that returns a boolean (or throw an Exception) depending on whether a file was deleted or not. This method may not be atomic with respect to other file system operations. Moreover if a file is in use by JVM/other program then on some operating system it will not be able to remove it. Every file can be converted to path via toPath method . E.g.

File file = ...;
boolean result = Files.deleteIfExists(file.toPath()); //surround it in try catch block