How do I cut a file to the clipboard in Java?

Question

I am using this code in a Java Swing application to copy files to the clipboard:

final List<File> files = new ArrayList<File>();
// ... code to fill list omitted ... //

Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard().setContents(
    new Transferable() {
        @Override
        public DataFlavor[] getTransferDataFlavors() {
            return new DataFlavor[] { DataFlavor.javaFileListFlavor };
        }

        @Override
        public boolean isDataFlavorSupported(DataFlavor flavor) {
            return DataFlavor.javaFileListFlavor.equals(flavor);
        }

        @Override
        public Object getTransferData(DataFlavor flavor) throws UnsupportedFlavorException, IOException {
            return files;
        }
    }, null
);

It works, in that I can go to Windows Explorer and Ctrl+V and the files turn up (hopefully it works in other OSes, though not tested). I'd like to implement cut also but I don't know how to let the system know that that's what the action is, or alternatively, how to get feedback for each successfully copied file so I can delete it from its original location manually.

If this isn't impossible, any suggestions on how I should handle this? I'd like to be able to cut & paste within the application too (separately to exchanging files with the OS explorer).

Answer 1

There is another post where people discuss the lack of a possibility to cut files:

Cutting files into the clipboard with SWT

If you really need it you could go the ugly way and check if there is a way to do this via JNI-calls, but then you have to do that for all platforms that you want to support...