How do I Copy files from one directory to another?

Question

I know how to move files using the renameTo() method of File class, but is there a simple way to copy files, without the need of reading the input stream form one file and writing to a new one?

Answer 1

Hi all,
I ripped this off the jakarta-ant project's file copier (with a small tweak)..
package com.museumcompany.util;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
import java.text.DecimalFormat;
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.Stack;
import java.util.StringTokenizer;
* This class also encapsulates methods which allow Files to be
* refered to using abstract path names which are translated to native
* system file paths at runtime as well as copying files or setting
* there last modification time.
* @author [email protected]
* @author Conor MacNeill
* @author Stefan Bodewig
* @version $Revision: 1.8 $
public class FileUtils {
private static Random rand = new Random(System.currentTimeMillis());
private static Object lockReflection = new Object();
* Factory method.
public static FileUtils newFileUtils() {
return new FileUtils();
* Empty constructor.
protected FileUtils() {}
* Convienence method to copy a file from a source to a destination.
* Overwrite is prevented, and the last modified is kept.
* @throws IOException
public void copyFile(String sourceFile, String destFile) throws IOException {
copyFile(new File(sourceFile), new File(destFile), false, true);
* Method to copy a file from a source to a
* destination specifying if
* source files may overwrite newer destination files and the
* last modified time of <code>destFile</code> file should be made equal
* to the last modified time of <code>sourceFile</code>.
* @throws IOException
public void copyFile(File sourceFile, File destFile,
boolean overwrite, boolean preserveLastModified)
throws IOException {
if (overwrite || !destFile.exists() ||
destFile.lastModified() < sourceFile.lastModified()) {
if (destFile.exists() && destFile.isFile()) {
destFile.delete();
// ensure that parent dir of dest file exists!
// not using getParentFile method to stay 1.1 compat
File parent = new File(destFile.getParent());
if (!parent.exists()) {
parent.mkdirs();
FileInputStream in = new FileInputStream(sourceFile);
FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(destFile);
byte[] buffer = new byte[8 * 1024];
int count = 0;
do {
out.write(buffer, 0, count);
count = in.read(buffer, 0, buffer.length);
} while (count != -1);
in.close();
out.close();
if (preserveLastModified) {
destFile.setLastModified(sourceFile.lastModified());
public File createTempFile(String prefix, String suffix, File parentDir) {
File result = null;
DecimalFormat fmt = new DecimalFormat("#####");
synchronized (rand) {
do {
result = new File(parentDir,
prefix + fmt.format(rand.nextInt())
+ suffix);
} while (result.exists());
return result;