Re: Remote file system in Java
On Thu, 18 Jun 2009, Spud wrote:
I have a need to access files on distributed servers running our app.
Ideally, I'd have a pure-Java solution that would provide the equivalent of
java.io.File and FileInputStream/FileOutputStream for files on another box.
Of course, the other box would also be running our app and listening for file
I/O requests.
The normal way to do this is use FTP, SCP, mapped drives, NFS, etc. and put a
Java wrapper around these apps. I'd really rather not, because it complicates
the install and I don't have control over the systems where our app runs. I
don't know in advance what the OS will be, for example. Hence the desire for
a pure-Java solution that just works.
Anyone know how to do this? Are there any good libraries available?
I don't know of one. I'd write a quick RMI wrapper round the java.io types
you need. Something like:
interface RemoteFile extends Remote {
public String getName() throws RemoteException;
public RemoteFile getParentFile() throws RemoteException;
public RemoteFileInputStream getInputStream() throws IOException, RemoteException; // replaces new FileInputStream(f)
// etc
}
interface RemoteFileSystem extends Remote {
public RemoteFile createFile(String path) throws RemoteException; // replaces new File()
}
The beauty of using interfaces is that you can then do something cleverer
if performance isn't good enough, without changing the calling code.
tom
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