Copying a File or Directory

Directories can be copied. However, files inside the directory are not copied, so the new directory is empty even when the original directory contains files.

When copying a symbolic link, the target of the link is copied. If you want to copy the link itself, and not the contents of the link, specify either the NOFOLLOW_LINKS or REPLACE_EXISTING option.

This method takes a varargs argument. The following StandardCopyOption and LinkOption enums are supported:

• REPLACE_EXISTING – Performs the copy even when the target file already exists. If the target is a symbolic link, the link itself is copied (and not the target of the link). If the target is a non-empty directory, the copy fails with the FileAlreadyExistsException exception.
• COPY_ATTRIBUTES – Copies the file attributes associated with the file to the target file. The exact file attributes supported are file system and platform dependent, but last-modified-time is supported across platforms and is copied to the target file.
• NOFOLLOW_LINKS – Indicates that symbolic links should not be followed. If the file to be copied is a symbolic link, the link is copied (and not the target of the link).

The following shows how to use the copy method:

import static java.nio.file.StandardCopyOption.*;
...
Files.copy(source, target, REPLACE_EXISTING);

In addition to file copy, the Files class also defines methods that may be used to copy between a file and a stream. The copy(InputStream, Path, CopyOptions...) method may be used to copy all bytes from an input stream to a file. The copy(Path, OutputStream) method may be used to copy all bytes from a file to an output stream.

The Copy example uses the copy and Files.walkFileTree methods to support a recursive copy. See Walking the File Tree for more information.