Example 1: Get a relative path from two absolute paths using URI class
import java.io.File;
import java.net.URI;
class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
// Two absolute paths
File absolutePath1 = new File("C:\\Users\\Desktop\\Programiz\\Java\\Time.java");
System.out.println("Absolute Path1: " + absolutePath1);
File absolutePath2 = new File("C:\\Users\\Desktop");
System.out.println("Absolute Path2: " + absolutePath2);
// convert the absolute path to URI
URI path1 = absolutePath1.toURI();
URI path2 = absolutePath2.toURI();
// create a relative path from the two paths
URI relativePath = path2.relativize(path1);
// convert the URI to string
String path = relativePath.getPath();
System.out.println("Relative Path: " + path);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.getStackTrace();
}
}
}
Output
Absolute Path1: C:\Users\Desktop\Programiz\Java\Time.java Absolute Path2: C:\Users\Desktop Relative Path: Programiz/Java/Time.java
In the above example, we have two absolute paths named absolutePath1 and absolutePath2. We have used the URI class to convert the absolute paths into the relative path.
- toURI() - converts the
File
object to a Uri - relativize() - extracts the relative path by comparing two absolute paths with one another
- getPath() - converts the Uri into a string
Also Read:
Example 2: Get a relative path from two absolute path using String methods
import java.io.File;
class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Create file objects
File file1 = new File("C:\\Users\\Desktop\\Programiz\\Java\\Time.java");
File file2 = new File("C:\\Users\\Desktop");
// convert file objects to string
String absolutePath1 = file1.toString();
System.out.println("Absolute Path1: " + absolutePath1);
String absolutePath2 = file2.toString();
System.out.println("Absolute Path2: " + absolutePath2);
// get the relative path
String relativePath = absolutePath1.substring(absolutePath2.length());
System.out.println("Absolute Path: " + relativePath);
}
}
Output
Absolute Path1: C:\Users\Desktop\Programiz\Java\Time.java Absolute Path2: C:\Users\Desktop Absolute Path: \Programiz\Java\Time.java
In the above example, we have converted the file paths to strings. Notice the expression,
absolutePath1.substring(absolutePath2.length())
Here, the substring()
method returns the part of absolutePath1 starting from index equal to the length of absolutePath2. That is, the string represented by absolutePath2 is removed from absolutePath1.
To learn more about how substring works, visit Java String substring().
Example 3: Get a relative path from two absolute paths using java.nio.file package
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// Create file objects
Path absolutePath1 = Paths.get("C:\\Users\\Desktop\\Programiz\\Java\\Time.java");
Path absolutePath2 = Paths.get("C:\\Users\\Desktop");
// convert the absolute path to relative path
Path relativePath = absolutePath2.relativize(absolutePath1);
System.out.println("Relative Path: " + relativePath);
}
}
Output
Relative Path: Programiz\Java\Time.java
In the above example, we have used the relativize()
method of the Path
interface to get a relative path from two absolute paths.
Also Read: