How to prevent JFileChooser automatically changing to parent directory?

Question

When you show only directories, and click on the dir icons to navigate, and then dont select anything and click OK, it automatically 'cd's to the parent folder.
My application is using the JFileChooser to let the user navigate through folders and certain details of 'foo' files in that folder are displayed in another panel.
So we dont want the chooser automatically changing dir to parent when OK is clicked. How to prevent this behavior?
I considered extending the chooser and looked at the Swing source code but it is hard to tell where the change dir is happening.
thanks,
Anil
To demonstrate this, I took the standard JFileChooserDemo from the Sun tutorial and modified it adding these lines
          // NEW line 45 in constructor
          fc.addPropertyChangeListener((PropertyChangeListener) this);
          fc.setFileSelectionMode(JFileChooser.DIRECTORIES_ONLY);
      * NEW -
      * @see java.awt.event.ActionListener#actionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent)
     public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent e) {
          String prop = e.getPropertyName();
          if (JFileChooser.DIRECTORY_CHANGED_PROPERTY.equals(prop)) {
               System.out.println("DIRECTORY_CHANGED_PROPERTY");
               File file = (File) e.getNewValue();
               System.out.println("DIRECTORY:" + file.getPath());
     }

Answer 1

Here is the demo:
package filechooser;
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Insets;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.beans.PropertyChangeEvent;
import java.beans.PropertyChangeListener;
import java.io.File;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFileChooser;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
* FileChooserDemo.java uses these files:
*   images/Open16.gif
*   images/Save16.gif
public class FileChooserDemo extends JPanel implements ActionListener,
          PropertyChangeListener {
     static private final String newline = "\n";
     JButton openButton, saveButton;
     JTextArea log;
     JFileChooser fc;
     public FileChooserDemo() {
          super(new BorderLayout());
          // Create the log first, because the action listeners
          // need to refer to it.
          log = new JTextArea(5, 20);
          log.setMargin(new Insets(5, 5, 5, 5));
          log.setEditable(false);
          JScrollPane logScrollPane = new JScrollPane(log);
          // Create a file chooser
          fc = new JFileChooser();
          // NEW
          fc.addPropertyChangeListener((PropertyChangeListener) this);
          fc.setFileSelectionMode(JFileChooser.DIRECTORIES_ONLY);
          // Create the open button. We use the image from the JLF
          // Graphics Repository (but we extracted it from the jar).
          openButton = new JButton("Open a File...",
                    createImageIcon("images/Open16.gif"));
          openButton.addActionListener(this);
          // Create the save button. We use the image from the JLF
          // Graphics Repository (but we extracted it from the jar).
          saveButton = new JButton("Save a File...",
                    createImageIcon("images/Save16.gif"));
          saveButton.addActionListener(this);
          // For layout purposes, put the buttons in a separate panel
          JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel(); // use FlowLayout
          buttonPanel.add(openButton);
          buttonPanel.add(saveButton);
          // Add the buttons and the log to this panel.
          add(buttonPanel, BorderLayout.PAGE_START);
          add(logScrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
      * NEW -
      * @see java.awt.event.ActionListener#actionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent)
     public void propertyChange(PropertyChangeEvent e) {
          String prop = e.getPropertyName();
          // If the directory changed, don't show an image.
          if (JFileChooser.DIRECTORY_CHANGED_PROPERTY.equals(prop)) {
               System.out.println("DIRECTORY_CHANGED_PROPERTY");
               File file = (File) e.getNewValue();
               System.out.println("DIRECTORY:" + file.getPath());
     public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
          // Handle open button action.
          if (e.getSource() == openButton) {
               int returnVal = fc.showOpenDialog(FileChooserDemo.this);
               if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) {
                    File file = fc.getSelectedFile();
                    // This is where a real application would open the file.
                    log.append("Opening: " + file.getName() + "." + newline);
               } else {
                    log.append("Open command cancelled by user." + newline);
               log.setCaretPosition(log.getDocument().getLength());
               // Handle save button action.
          } else if (e.getSource() == saveButton) {
               int returnVal = fc.showSaveDialog(FileChooserDemo.this);
               if (returnVal == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) {
                    File file = fc.getSelectedFile();
                    // This is where a real application would save the file.
                    log.append("Saving: " + file.getName() + "." + newline);
               } else {
                    log.append("Save command cancelled by user." + newline);
               log.setCaretPosition(log.getDocument().getLength());
     /** Returns an ImageIcon, or null if the path was invalid. */
     protected static ImageIcon createImageIcon(String path) {
          java.net.URL imgURL = FileChooserDemo.class.getResource(path);
          if (imgURL != null) {
               return new ImageIcon(imgURL);
          } else {
               System.err.println("Couldn't find file: " + path);
               return null;
      * Create the GUI and show it. For thread safety, this method should be
      * invoked from the event dispatch thread.
     private static void createAndShowGUI() {
          // Create and set up the window.
          JFrame frame = new JFrame("FileChooserDemo");
          frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          // Add content to the window.
          frame.add(new FileChooserDemo());
          // Display the window.
          frame.pack();
          frame.setVisible(true);
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          // Schedule a job for the event dispatch thread:
          // creating and showing this application's GUI.
          SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    // Turn off metal's use of bold fonts
                    UIManager.put("swing.boldMetal", Boolean.FALSE);
                    createAndShowGUI();
}