Directory search

Question

i have created a method which lists a directory of folders sub folders and files. It outputs them into a file. At the moment it only lists files, folders and subfolders, it doesnt go deeper than a subfolder so if there is a folder within that subfolder it will be ignored.
Essentially i want the method to recursively list all files within any folders in a directory. Also i i think it would be more efficient to output the file names into a array of strings.
try
        PrintWriter out2 = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(outFile2)));
        PrintWriter out3 = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(outFile)));
        status.setText("Searching " + searchDir.substring(searchDir.length()));
        File f = new File(searchDir);
        //List directory
        if(f.isDirectory())
            String w[] = f.list();
            for (int i=0; i<w.length; i++)
               if(w.indexOf(".txt") <= 0)
File dir1 = new File("c:/me/"+w[i]+"/");
if(dir1.isDirectory())
String z[] = dir1.list();
for (int j=0; j<z.length; j++)
{         if(z[j]!="")
out2.println(w[i]+"/"+z[j]);
System.out.println(w[i]+"/"+z[j]);
else
{ System.out.println("it works");
break;
if(w[i].indexOf(".txt") >= 0)
//if((w[i].indexOf(".txt") >= 0)||(w[i].indexOf(".gif") >= 0)||(w[i].indexOf(".jpg") >= 0))
out2.println(w[i]);
out2.close();
catch(IOException e)
System.out.println("Input file does not exist or some other errors");
The program searches through files for a users input so i need to do this for all files in a specific directory.
Has anyone got any suggestions on how i can improve this method or the best way to do it.

Answer 1

or you could use a File Filter
public class MyFileFilter implements java.io.FileFilter {
    private String[] ext;
    public MyFileFilter() {
    //takes an array of file extensions
    public MyFileFilter(String[] ext) {
        this.ext = ext;
    public boolean accept(java.io.File file) {
        if(file.isDirectory())
            return true;
        else if(ext==null&&file.exists())
            return true;
        else
            for(int i=0;i<ext.length;i++)
                if(file!=null&&file.exists()&&file.getName().indexOf(ext)>0)
return true;
return false;
then create a filter
filter = new MyFileFilter(new String[]{".gif",".jpg"});then send it to a recursive method
    public static ArrayList getFiles(File parent, FileFilter filter) {
        ArrayList current = new ArrayList();
        if(parent!=null&&filter!=null) {
            File[] files = parent.listFiles(filter);
            if(files!=null)
                for(int i=0;i<files.length;i++) {
                    if(files.isDirectory())
current.addAll(getFiles(files[i], filter));
else
current.add(files[i]);
return current;
then traverse arraylist and write the toString() or getName() or whatever
walker