How to construct a relative path in Java from two absolute paths (or URLs)?

java url file path
VoidPointer picture VoidPointer · Oct 15, 2008 · Viewed 209.5k times · Source

Given two absolute paths, e.g.

/var/data/stuff/xyz.dat
/var/data

How can one create a relative path that uses the second path as its base? In the example above, the result should be: ./stuff/xyz.dat

Answer

Adam Crume picture Adam Crume · Oct 15, 2008

It's a little roundabout, but why not use URI? It has a relativize method which does all the necessary checks for you.

String path = "/var/data/stuff/xyz.dat";
String base = "/var/data";
String relative = new File(base).toURI().relativize(new File(path).toURI()).getPath();
// relative == "stuff/xyz.dat"

Please note that for file path there's java.nio.file.Path#relativize since Java 1.7, as pointed out by @Jirka Meluzin in the other answer.

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