1. Overview
In this tutorial, we’ll see a few different solutions to find if a given file or directory exists using Scala.
2. Using Java IO
Since Scala can use any java library, the first possibility is using the Java standard IO module.
To test if a file or directory exists, we can use the File#exists() method. This method returns a boolean indicating if the file or directory denoted by the given pathname exists:
scala> import java.io.File
scala> File("/tmp/baeldung.txt").exists()
val res0: Boolean = true
scala> File("/tmp/unexisting_file").exists()
val res1: Boolean = false
scala> File("/tmp").exists()
val res2: Boolean = true
3. Using Java NIO
Since Java 7 we have another solution to test if a given file exists, using Files.exists(filename) method:
scala> import java.nio.file.Files
scala> import java.nio.file.Paths
scala> Paths.get("/tmp/baeldung.txt")
val res0: java.nio.file.Path = /tmp/baeldung.txt
scala> Files.exists(Paths.get("/tmp/baeldung.txt"))
val res1: Boolean = true
scala> Files.exists(Paths.get("/tmp/unexisting_file"))
val res2: Boolean = false
scala> Files.exists(Paths.get("/tmp"))
val res3: Boolean = true
Just like the previous example, this method also returns a boolean indicating if the file or directory denoted by the given pathname exists.
4. Conclusion
In this article, we saw how we can check if a given file exists by leveraging the Scala and Java interoperability capabilities.