Java.io.File exists() problem

Question

I have a web application deployed on a Windows 2000 server and am running Tomcat 4. I want to check for the existence of an image file before displaying it and am trying to use the java.io.File.exists() method. I am using the following code:
String strPicUrl = "/images/thefile.jpg"; //Actual value comes from database
File theFile = new File(application.getRealPath(strPicUrl));
out.print("File Exists: " + theFile.exists() + "<br>");the actual file name in this example is "/images/theFile.jpg", and theFile.exists() always returns true if the file is there, but differs in case. If I try to display the image it doesnt show up under Tomcat because aliasing is turned off by default. I need to find a way to determine if a file exists based on actual case matching. This way if I get a "true" value, the file should be accessible and/or viewable via the JSP engine.
Any ideas how to perform a case sensitive "exists()" regardless of the underlying OS file system?

Answer 1

This looks awesome, but when I tried to implement it without creating a class, I get a method error. Here is the code below:
String theDir = "C:\\Dir\\Subdir\\";
FileFilter theFilter = new FileFilter() {
     private String _theFile = null;
     public boolean accept(File file)
          if (file.isDirectory()) return false;
          String fileName = file.getName();
          if (fileName.endsWith(_theFile)) return true;
          return false;
     public void setTheFile(String theFileParam)  
          _theFile = theFileParam;  
theFilter.setTheFile("theFile.jpg");When I run this I get the following error:
[javac] ...blah error stuff...
[javac] cannot resolve symbol
[javac] symbol : method setTheFile (java.lang.String)
[javac] location: interface java.io.FileFilter
[javac] theFilter.setTheFile("theFile.jpg");
Since I am invoking the FileFilter object directly and not instantiating it in a class, is that causing the error or am I declaring "setTheFile()" wrong?