IllegalArgumentException: File contains a path separator Android

java android file exception illegalargumentexception
Talal Saleem picture Talal Saleem · Nov 21, 2014 · Viewed 29.2k times · Source

I'm trying to write to an output file on my HTC One and get the following message in the LogCat:

11-21 08:05:18.228: W/System.err(6609): java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: File /storage/emulated/0/com.example.pattern1/myfile.txt contains a path separator

The source code is given below:

    protected void writeToFile(String string){

    File patternDirectory = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath().toString()+"/com.example.pattern1/myfile.txt");
    patternDirectory.mkdirs();

    FileOutputStream outputStream;

    try {
      outputStream = openFileOutput(patternDirectory.getAbsolutePath().toString(), Context.MODE_APPEND);
      outputStream.write(string.getBytes());
      TextView t = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.bottomMidText);
      t.setText(patternDirectory.getAbsolutePath().toString());
      outputStream.close();

    } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

I would appreciate if someone can help identify the problem.

Answer

Blue_Alien picture Blue_Alien · Nov 21, 2014

The openFileInput method will not accept path separators.('/')

it accepts only the name of the file which you want to open/access. so change the statement

outputStream = openFileOutput(patternDirectory.getAbsolutePath().toString(), Context.MODE_APPEND);

to 

outputStream = new FileOutputStream (new File(patternDirectory.getAbsolutePath().toString()), true); // true will be same as Context.MODE_APPEND

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