Manipulating with path

Question

Hello,
Can anyone help me with this:
I would like to work with files wia absolute path (in windows), for example:
d:\work\java\work_folder\test.txt.
How can i do this? I know that it works when i change path like this:
br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("d:\\work\\java\\work_folder\\test.txt"));But how can i change it? My idea was using regex, but i am not able even create a string with given path.
When I try:
String str = new String("d:\work\java\work_folder\test.txt");I get error "illegal escape character"
then I tried:
  String ss  = new String.replaceAll("d:\work\java\work_folder\test.txt", "\\");and got the same mistake "illegal escape character"
and finaly i tried :
String sss = string.replace('d:\work\java\work_folder\test.txt', '\\');and got mistakes: "unclosed character literal", "illegal character: \92" and "')' expected".
Anyone can tell me if the approach I am taking is correct and if yes how to manipulate the path?
Thx in advance.

Answer 1

There is no need to escape backslashes in this case.
Escaping is required inside your code only, when defining String literal.
This is because some special characters must be escaped, like 'new line' is \n
The backslash is reserved for escaping such special characters.
As a consequence, the backslash itself is a spacial character, which must be escaped: \\