What is the easiest way to overwrite file content WITHOUT deleting the target file?

Question

I have source file:

String sourceFileName = "C:\\Users\\blah\\source\\sourceFileName.csv"

And I have the destination file:

String destinationFileName= "C:\\Users\\blah\\destination\\destinationFileName.csv"

I need to overwrite the content of destination file with the content from the source file. However, I can't figure out how to do this without deleting the destination file. All methods I can think of are simply deleting the destination file, and replacing it with the source file. I CANNOT delete the destination file itself. I can only delete the content of that file, and paste the new content. How can I do this in Java?

My current method

public static void overwriteTheContent(File sourceFile, String targetFileName) {
    Path sourcePath = sourceFile.toPath();
    Path targetPath = Paths.get(targetFileName);
    File file = targetPath.toFile();
    if(file.isFile()){
        try {
             
            Files.delete(targetPath); // I want to delete only the content, not the file !!!!!!!!
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    try {
        Files.move(sourcePath, targetPath);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

You don't do anything special. Just open the file for output and write data to the file. The data will be overwritten. — camickr, Aug 07 '21 at 16:40
not sure how to do this. buffered writer? or what? NIO? apache commons — john, Aug 07 '21 at 16:59
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1016278/is-this-the-best-way-to-rewrite-the-content-of-a-file-in-java — Roger, Aug 07 '21 at 17:11

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 07 '21 at 17:58

0

are you searching for something like this?:

    PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(FILE_PATH);
writer.print("");
writer.close();

and then:

PrintWriter writer2 = new PrintWriter(FILE_PATH);
writer.print("what you want to save to the file");

answered Aug 07 '21 at 17:58

Spaceunderflow

48
5

What is the easiest way to overwrite file content WITHOUT deleting the target file?

1 Answers1